






















< 






° ^ ♦ 

« 6 V o. *o . * * A <* ♦ 

^ a! ** 1 # 4 *0 <& o 0 w ® 4 '<£ 

Y O • ‘ 



*: 'W ?£M££* *6$ 

* ^5 ^ ^0 v^ 

** -a.^ £V %V**XS££?\, v /% ' -*•. 

$* .. <U 4 '*-° A 0 ^ 

V j -fc* aV *Vi* * ^ 






HO*. 


v : 


* A y <^ •* 

* 4 T ^ . 


v v t 

: W ; 

• S* % ‘ 


V » V *W „ “V *4 V^fiwv A? ^ •'VJR\K‘ 

%. '• • * *4 <>. ■ f 'Vvf* . 0 «- ^b *■<>.,< 

» * o C°" * * <$> A V l / * * 3 > c 

f,f o .1 17 * p4SV\ ^ *p /U i * Y ^ U Jl 1 

aS * . 0 * a?/t 77 ? 2 *^ ^ J®’ 


'’o** 



*. ^o’ : 



'W 


*< 



;• *. 0r? *, '?<%%!&' «H°*. i 0 vv 

I / \-WZ\4> v^v 

** .-ivv-.%^ < .*' / . -jsfe' - *<** .•-*»■• 

a c^ *• OlV”^ * ’ 

- * <£•, oVjj&XK* A V V. • 

V. ' * • * A& ^ *’’<> * * * j\ 

% ^ .cr t «‘' 1 *. **b, A> v .•■<, ^ - 0 i 

V* ,*^ 5 SW. - 0 

'' f ~ 

v '.»■ 4>4 *-^W: ^ * 

K» * 

O, 'o ¥ \ * K f \ «<f, ♦ '^(TYT' » «-' <y- • « ^’4 | 

*♦ f o 4 ^y c°* % • w * • „ *£» A, 

o w* .’j« 5 Ssi*r. +~. fP .CW- o, .,-»? 





'* 0 ^ 


° ^° V 

>* 0 ° + *; 
aO v »’> O 

^ ’>Va° ^ <v ^ 






* ,^? ^ O 





^ v • • * ^ , 0 %. *° • * * vv ♦JWjC 

<► 5 vA . 0 ' .* JJ* o ^ c° H o * ^ 

k * ^ - c °.„ ^ o° 









4°^ *. 



<#> v y r . _ 




v 

% .o° \ **E7»*'^ °o. 

; v -*SS& V* :38fe 


** ^ v -v 


K* • §■# 4 V rj' ‘" v * v»V Vj ° V ^RXK ■* A V ~.y\. 

♦©«7 * A. -> + *«tN 8 ** ,A V <#» » is _ v "d* 

^ A* SjsxZ** ^ „cr € » t# ** ^O -V e e*«* 

vy&> ■* ... «N % «5svv0yK , «Jk. * v ^ • <-r*^c\ < 


. ’’o^ : 

>° S- 0v ^ V 

■ • • ** /' V^*’'** 

^ , v .•••-* 


.4 « 



A ^ O 
■ ♦ A? *>, o 

* (y \b. '• 


^ AV *$* ** 

..* * v V -^ZBS*»* A? 

**■ * u .,. ^ '*♦* 'A <, *'7Vi* .G* - 

-CT t * * C> «A 0 # "S "d* A * t * » 

G *ae>ff77?*' 9 O v )^ *rC J ^v^ y P At*-* 

■■■i 9 ~ H 


V vA 


t I *» 



** A> °o %*-. •" o 

AV «U 8 * 0 A U 

V cv ,o 

£■*> * 



i v * v * 




V ilP# \Mkkr W 

* «/ <>, o 

■% ■cl'' «£» 


* &'++ '.i 

% '••’• * • V ' <u A K % * ; 

° ^ ^ C° °o 

:*. ^ o' 5 v 



. ** 



, ? ^ V 

o f\ ^ Srv * . 

aP V, 8 / ^ • 

\ %f •»• 

V-* 



A'Cr 


* A <b ♦75 a* ' 

+ *P .0 

*. <ss\\\ri'%. j ‘ ^7, „ C " 


■"'v'’!w% 

^ \ >■ * 
A r v> • 

«p- *«^^; y^. ; 

• & % ‘ 





, ^ ^ v 

* 8 0 ’ ^ * X ^ *0 ** .Vo 0 

iv ^ ^ ^ *> V 

> & A ^ 

: ^ • 

• o 

* V lC 



ct* » e y 4 „ v- v-' * <)V » 

-. . . * A <■ •VTvT* 6* V 
^o, jA 0“““* ^ o^ .‘**. *^0 









FOOTLIGHTS 















FOOTLIGHTS 




BY 

RITA WEIMAN 




NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 

1923 






Copyright, 1919, 1920, 1921, 1922 
By RITA WEIMAN 


PRINTED IN U. S. A. 



APR-3 *23 


©C1A698837 




t 




To 

MY MOTHER 

on whose love and influence 
the curtain will never fall. 




CONTENTS 


The Curtain Rises . ix 

Footlights.3 

Madame Peacock.67 

Grease-Paint.127 

The Back Drop.169 

Two Masters.219 

Up Stage.249 

Curtain !.289 

The Curtain Falls.341 

vii 











THE CURTAIN RISES 


Arched like the dome of heaven, illumined with a glow 
not brilliant but warm and intimate, carpeted with velvet 
that gives gently to the tread of many feet, the air 
vaguely scented with a perfume that has no name, row 
upon row of wide, soft-armed chairs facing a curtain that 
falls in long, mysterious folds—silent, expectant, tantaliz¬ 
ing, inviting—a world all its own—THE THEATER. 

Behind that curtain—the same world bounded by brick 
walls. Scenery with act numbers scrawled in charcoal 
across its back being shoved into place, hustling property 
men, frantic stage manager, nervous director giving last 
minute husky orders, anxiously repeated lines and cues, 
the final touches of make-up, restive feet striding dress¬ 
ing-room floors. There is the murmur of hushed voices, 
its excited undercurrent like a rising chant, the tremulo 
of uncertainty, the eager activity of that suspended 
moment of waiting for the curtain to lift. 

Actors and audience—they must for a few brief hours 
change places if this world made for forgetfulness, this 
house of dreams is to realize its unwritten law:— 
“Abandon care, all ye who enter here:” The spirit of 
the theater lays magic fingers over tired eyes. The 
audience steps across the footlights and becomes the 
actor, throbs to his emotions, sheds his tears, tingles with 
his laughter. The actor must step across the footlights 
and become the audience, feel his pulse beat, sense his 

pleasure or disapproval, know his reaction. 

ix 


X 


FOOTLIGHTS 


And in proportion to the measure with which each be¬ 
comes the other, the enthusiasm with which the audience 
acts, the keenness with which the actor observes, the play 
lives. The house of dreams is alight! But if either 
should fail—and if one fail, it is because the other does— 
then the play is phantom. A stalking ghost walks the 
boards. The house of dreams goes dark! 


FOOTLIGHTS 


SATIRE 

The Romance of yesterday is the Satire of to-morrow. 
Juliet to-day would be a lovesick flapper. We’d regard with 
tongue in cheek her moonings to the moon. There is such 
a fine line between the smile of sympathy and the smile of 
sophistication, that the author confesses she is still in doubt 
which the heroine of “Footlights” will call forth—if either. 



* 








/ 





FOOTLIGHTS 


CHAPTER I 

H AVE you ever been in a small town, small time 
vaudeville house? Well, even if you have, and 
could live through it, you’ve probably never seen that 
mysterious region known as a backstage.” You’ve never 
heard warped boards creak under the lightest step. 
You’ve never stood in the wings waiting for your turn, 
trying to escape the draught that is everywhere, shiver¬ 
ing but afraid to sneeze. You’ve never dodged misdi¬ 
rected tobacco juice. You’ve never endured the com¬ 
posite odors only a one time “opery-house,” sometime 
warehouse, another time stable, can produce. You’ve 
never done your three a day, rain, shine or blizzard, then 
rushed to catch a local with oil lamps swinging weirdly 
overhead and a jerky halt at every peach tree. But 
most of all, if you’re a woman, you’ve never known what 
it is to sit weeping in a pea-green walled dressing-room 
because you chose to do the darn thing yourself and 
won’t go back home and admit you’re beaten. 

If any one of these experiences had been yours, you’d 
probably walk straight into the pea-green dressing-room 
referred to, pat Elizabeth Parsons on the shoulder and 
say, “I’m with you, old girl! It’s a black, black world. 
No sunshine anywhere! Never was, never will be!” 

As it happened, those in her world at the moment were 
not of her world. They were a hardened lot, with hands 

ready to dig down and share a copper with a pal, with 
glib greeting in their own peculiar patois as they swung 

3 


4 


FOOTLIGHTS 


through the stage entrance, but inured to creaking boards, 
to combined odors, to oaths and tobacco juice and icy 
currents that gripped more sensitive shoulders like the 
hand of death. Life had handed them a deal that wasn’t 
exactly square, perhaps. Almost any of them would 
have been a knock-out on Broadway! But they had 
reached the point where emotion, as well as indignation, 
expressed itself in shrugs. 

They could snore peacefully in a swaying day-coach, 
dreaming of the hour when the flower of success would 
spring up by the wayside. So Elizabeth Parsons wept 
alone. Her make-up boxes reeled in every direction as 
her head went down in their midst. Her hands, pressed 
against her lips, tried to still the sobs she knew were 
cowardly. Her body shook with that least beautiful of 
human emotions, self-pity, and she wished she were dead. 

A gale of sleet and snow tore against her little alley 
window. It rattled the single pane furiously. It forced 
its way through cracks and dripped into pools of water 
on the stone floor. It blurred the already dull electric 
globes round her dressing-table with a dank mist and 
soaked a chill into her bones. But it had nothing what¬ 
ever to do with her tears. They were the result of an 
accumulation of misery and loneliness, and finally the 
receipt of a wire from her booking agent advising her 
that her route had been changed. For the next three 
days she must play her own home town. 

It was the crowning humiliation! She had endured 
the disappointment of all the rest of it; but to go back 
to the barnlike old theater in Main Street, wedged be¬ 
tween movies and tinsel acrobats, was too much. To 


FOOTLIGHTS 


5 


hear the wagging tongues and see the wagging heads of 
those who had warned her two years ago that New York 
was a pit of the devil; to let them see that even his 
satanic majesty had let her sink into oblivion, was more 
than she could bear. 

From the stage at the foot of the iron stairs came a 
crashing chord and the voice of Jack Halloran, “The Fun¬ 
niest Man in the World,” singing a nasal travesty: — 

“Oh, Rigoletto—give me a stiletto!” 

Elizabeth raised her head, mopped away the tears, and 
rearranged her make-up. Her turn was next but one. 

“BETTY PARSONS—FAMOUS IMITATOR OF 

FAMOUS STARS 
STRAIGHT FROM BROADWAY.” 

So proclaimed the announcements that accompanied 
her pictures outside the theater. They always made 
Elizabeth smile. She had certainly come from Broadway 
—straight. 

She brushed back her soft brown hair, pinned a towel 
round it, laid on a layer of grease-paint. A supply 
was needed to blot out traces of the last bad half hour. 
She beaded the lashes, penciled black shadows under 
them that made her gray eyes look green, and carmined 
her lips so that the slightly austere New England lines of 
them softened into luscious curves. 

In the midst of transforming a primrose into an orchid, 
and with thoughts still fastened on the dreaded to-mor¬ 
row, she did not hear the knock on her door. It was 


6 


FOOTLIGHTS 


repeated. Turning, she saw a white square of paper 
shoved through the crack. She picked it up wonderingly. 
Communications from any one but her agent were almost 
unknown quantities. 


Dear Lizzie Parsons (she read), 

I’m outside of the door waiting to come in and say 
hello. 


Your old friend, 

Lou Seabury. 


In spite of her dread, in spite of her determination to 
die rather than face home folks, she dropped her powder 
puff, made one bound for the door, flung it wide. 

“Oh, Rigoletti—give me a yard of spaghetti,” warbled 
Halloran from below. 

With a little checked cry, Elizabeth reached out both 
hands. A plump, pink cheeked young man took 
them and somewhat diffidently stepped into the little 
square of room. But Elizabeth clung to him shamelessly 
and her voice caught when she tried to speak. He was 
the first link between two years of loneliness and the 
yesterdays of happy childhood. 

“Lou,” came at last, “Lou Seabury!” 

“I got a nerve, haven’t I,—walkin’ in on you like this?” 

His pink face flushed a deeper pink as she pulled the 
chair from the dressing-table, thrust him into it, and 
stood looking down. “You’re just an angel from heaven, 
that’s what you are! How ever in the world did you 
find me?” 

“I came over here yesterday to look at some threshin’ 
machines. Scott Brothers are sellin’ out and Dad got 



FOOTLIGHTS 


7 


word they’re lettin’ their stuff go dirt cheap, so he sent me 
to take a squint. By Jiminy, I almost dropped dead 
when I went past the theater this afternoon and saw your 
picture. Maybe I didn’t go right up to the girl in the 
ticket box and tell her I was an old friend of yours!” 

Elizabeth’s tongue went into her cheek. “And what 
did she say?” 

“Asked why I didn’t come in to see you perform to¬ 
night and I said I would. But first I made up my mind 
I’d let you know I was here. Say—what is it you do?” 

“Imitations.” 

“Who do you imitate?” 

“Oh, Ethel Barrymore and Elsie Janis and Eddie Foy 
and George Cohan and Nazimova—” She reeled off a 
list, most of them strange to him. 

“I’ll bet you’re great. Gee—Lizzie—but you’re 
pretty.” His round face went scarlet as the words 
popped out and he shifted uneasily under the loose ill- 
fitting coat that hung from his broad shoulders. 

She met his wide-eyed admiration with a smile. “It’s 
the paint, Lou.” 

“No, sirree! You always were pretty. I used to 
watch you sittin’ beside me in the choir, and when you 
threw back your head and sort of closed your eyes to sing, 
I didn’t wonder Sam Goodwin was crazy about you.” 

“Is he still organist at the First Presbyterian?” 

“Yep.” 

“And are you still in the choir?” 

“Yep.” His boyish brown eyes dropped. His plump 
hands twisted the brim of his wide slouch hat. “Guess 
that’s the most I’ll ever amount to.” 


8 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“But that beautiful voice of yours—it’s a sin!” 

“My Dad don’t think so. Gimcracks, he calls it. I 
asked him once to give me enough to get it trained,” the 
eyes lifted with a twinkle, “and I never asked him again.” 

She patted his arm sympathetically. “He wouldn’t 
understand—of course.” 

“Gee, I wish I had your sand, Lizzie! To break away 
—and make good.” 

She turned swiftly to the mirror, picked up the dis¬ 
carded puff, dabbed some powder on her nose, then care¬ 
fully rouged her nostrils. And if a tear smudged into the 
shadow under her eye, he didn’t notice it. 

He watched her fascinated, every move, every 
practiced touch to her make-up. She had unpinned the 
towel and her hair fluffed like a golden brown halo round 
her small, mobile face. And catching his rapt expression 
in the mirror, it flashed over her that to him she did rep¬ 
resent success. The mere fact that she had broken the 
chains of New England tradition, that she had crossed 
the rubicon of the footlights, put her on a plane apart. 

Somehow the look in his nice eyes, of wonder, of envy, 
of homage—the look she had so often worn when from a 
fifty cent seat in the gallery she had studied the methods 
of the stars she impersonated—gave her new courage. 
Tonight she would not go through her ten minutes list¬ 
lessly with just one idea uppermost—to get her theater 
trunk packed in a rush so that she might snatch a few 
hours’ sleep before making the train in the dull gray 
dawn. To-night she would be sure at least of an audi¬ 
ence of one, of interest and enthusiasm and a thrill of ex- 



FOOTLIGHTS 9 

citement—and these she would merit. She would do 
her turn for Lou Seabury in a way he’d never forget. 

She drew a stool from under the dressing-table, sat 
down and plied him with hurried questions about the 
folks at home. He gave her the latest news, little in¬ 
timate bits that mean nothing but are so dear to one who 
knows no fireside but the battered washstand and cracked 
basin of a third-rate hotel room. 

Grand’pa Terwilliger, seventy-nine, was keeping 
company with the widow Bonser but was scared to marry 
her for fear folks would talk. Grace Perkins had a new 
baby. Stanley Perkins had married a stenographer in 
Boston and bought a flivver. He, Lou, had bought a 
victrola for fifteen dollars second-hand and had some 
crackerjack opera records for it. She ought to hear 
them! 

When finally she sent him round to the front of the 
house and hurried down the ugly iron steps, her low- 
heeled white slippers touched them with an eager light¬ 
ness they had not known for months. 

The curtain was rung down on a one-act sketch. A 
placard announced “Miss Betty Parsons—in her Famous 
Imitations.” 

With a dazzling smile, Elizabeth sallied forth, cane in 
hand singing, “I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy.” 

Through her repertoire she went, changing like a 
chameleon from the bland grin and strut of Eddie Foy 
to the crumpled pleading and out-flung hands of Nazi- 
mova in “The Doll’s House.” She plunged into Nora’s 
final scene with her husband: 


10 


FOOTLIGHTS 


, . . “When your terror was over—not for what threat¬ 
ened me, but for yourself . . . then it seemed to me—as 
though nothing had happened. I was your lark again, your 
doll just as before—whom you would take twice as much 
care of in future, because she was so weak and fragile. 
Torwald—in that moment it burst upon me that I had been 
living here these eight years with a strange man. . . . Oh, 
I can’t bear to think of it! I could tear myself to pieces!” 

The greater part of the audience had never heard of 
the Russian actress, knew less of the Scandinavian au¬ 
thor. But the sob in the voice of the frail little girl on 
the stage, the anguish in her face got them by the throat. 

There was a spontaneous burst of applause that held 
for a moment while Betty bowed, glance straying into 
the misty auditorium, heart fluttering with a gratification 
it had not known since the Grand Central spilled her into 
the bewildering maze that is New York. 

She swung quickly into ragtime after that, the drawling 
syncopation and rolling step of a black-face comedian, 
and as a conclusion gave them Elsie Janis in one of the 
songs from her latest Broadway success. 

They brought her back several times. She threw them 
a final kiss, disappeared into the wings and whisked 
up the stairs. Lou was going to see the show to its finish, 
then call for her. He was sure they could persuade the 
proprietor of the hotel where she was staying to fix up 
a little supper of sandwiches and milk. 

She slipped out of her white dress and into a dark one, 
folded the former in layers of tissue paper and laid it in 
the top trunk tray, stuffing stockings into the corners to 
keep it in place. She gathered together her make-up, 


FOOTLIGHTS 


11 


packed it into a tin box. To-morrow another pea-green 
dressing-room, or perhaps, saffron-yellow. The week fol¬ 
lowing, one of chalk-blue. And so on, ad infinitum. 
Of such her infinite variety! 

A knock came at the door. She glanced at the gold 
watch which had been her grandmother’s. Ten-fifteen. 
Lou had probably tired of the show. 

Pulling on her black velvet tarn, she called gaily— 
“Come in!” 

A mellow voice answered interrogatively, “Miss Par¬ 
sons?” 

It was then she wheeled about. Standing framed in 
the doorway was a tall man with a cloud of black hair 
sweeping from a white forehead and a pair of intense 
dark eyes. Elizabeth knew him instantly. 

No mistaking that face and long, lean figure. 

She drew a bewildered hand across a bewildered brow. 
In the doorway of her dressing-room stood Oswald Kane, 
famous New York theatrical producer! 

She made no attempt at speech, just stared at him. 

He smiled. “You expected some one else, I see. May 
I come in?” And as she nodded, “You know me?” 

She nodded again, indicated the chair and sank onto 
the low stool. She couldn’t have stood another instant. 

“You’re wondering, of course, why I am here,” the low 
musical voice went on. 

“Y-yes.” 

“I’m very much interested in your work, Miss Par¬ 
sons. I have come to see it three times—last night and 
twice to-day. Until to-night, however, I was not quite 
sure of you. There was a listless quality. Had any one, 


12 


FOOTLIGHTS 


perhaps, informed you that I was in front to-night?” 

“If any one had, I’d probably have died of nervous¬ 
ness.” 

He smiled again, ran a hand through his heavy hair, 
pushing it back from his forehead, and leaned forward. 
“You seem to be a very talented little girl. No tech¬ 
nique, of course. You have the A B C’s of that to 
learn. But you have a flexible voice and expressive 
face, and you showed in that Nazimova bit emotional 
possibilities. Your reproduction of her tone and accent 
were really excellent.” 

“Th—thank you,” came with difficulty. 

“Of course, I have no proof that you can act. Even 
if you can, it will require infinite patience and training 
to make an actress of you. But I could do it, I believe.” 

Elizabeth gulped. 

He shook back his shock of hair. His burrowing eyes 
narrowed. His fingers hesitatingly played with the thin 
watch chain that spanned his high waistcoat. “The 
majority of actresses on the American stage are mere 
mummers. Those I have made are artistes. But in or¬ 
der to accomplish this, they have given themselves into 
my hands—absolutely. I have taken girls out of the 
chorus and made stars of them in the drama—not be¬ 
cause they were lovely to look at, or quick or clever, but 
because I have worked hard with them, with infinite pa¬ 
tience developed their personalities, injected into them 
the inspiration that is Oswald Kane.” 

“Yes,” said Elizabeth. 

“Of course there must be ability or I would not waste 
my time. I must be sure the seed is there to be nursed 


FOOTLIGHTS 


13 


into a beautiful flower. But first and foremost, the ac¬ 
tress I train must obliterate self. She must become so 
much clay for me to model. She must accept my direc¬ 
tion without question. She must obey as a soldier obeys 
his commanding officer.” 

“Yes,” sighed Elizabeth. 

“I see you now not as you are, but as what I can make 
of you. No two of my stars are alike. Each has distinct 
and startling personality. That is why the American 
public looks to me for sensations. Not one is the actress 
she was when I discovered her. They are, one and all, 
Oswald Kane creations.” He leaned back, still studying 
her. 

Elizabeth felt a sea of eyes upon her in a gaze of hyp¬ 
nosis. She stared back like one in a trance. 

He sat for a long moment silent. Then the low, quiet 
voice went on, richly vibrant as the tones of a cello. 

“Yes, I think I might do something with you. That 
Nazimova bit showed promise. But it will require train¬ 
ing and patience—infinite patience. You will have to 
work hard without complaint, hours over one line, weeks 
over one short scene. And no recognition, perhaps, for 
some years to come. You must not consider mundane 
things. Money must count for nothing. I cannot think 
of money in connection with my art. You must never 
grow tired or disgruntled. Above all, you must not ques¬ 
tion. And in the end, a great artiste, my child,—a great 
artiste.” 

Elizabeth nodded mechanically. She felt like scream¬ 
ing. 

He got up slowly as if still uncertain, moved into a 


14 


FOOTLIGHTS 


corner of the little room, eyes still upon her. “Will you 
take off your hat and smooth down your hair. I must 
see your features at close range.” 

With fingers that trembled and stiffened, she pulled off 
her tarn, combed back her fluffy brown hair and breath¬ 
lessly lifted her profile to the light. It was, as he had 
said, a face not beautiful, but malleable to mood as wax, 
with gray eyes set wide apart, a short nose, full sensitive 
red lips, deep-cleft chin and swift change of expression 
that was almost a change of feature. And there was in 
her slim figure with its soft suggestion of curve, the mag¬ 
netism of youth, the flame of enduring energy. 

He moved finally toward the door. 

“You will take the 11:18 to-night to New York, cancel 
all bookings, and I shall expect you at my theater to¬ 
morrow at noon.” 

Elizabeth found her voice at last. “If you knew how 
many, many times I’ve gone to your office, Mr. Kane, 
and begged on my knees for just one little word with 
you! ” 

He smiled once more, that charming, somewhat depre¬ 
catory smile of his. “That is not my way of engaging 
artistes. I must seek them, not they me. I never see 
those who come to my office, unless I have sent for them. 
No, my way is to haunt out-of-the-way places. Railroad 
stations, unknown stock theaters, cheap theatrical ho¬ 
tels, vaudeville houses like this. There, occasionally, I 
find my flower among the weeds. And when I do, I pluck 
it to transplant in my own garden. If I discover one a 
year, I ask no more.” 


FOOTLIGHTS 15 

A sob broke in Elizabeth’s throat. “Oh, Mr. Kane—I 
—I’m so proud—and so—so grateful.” 

He took her trembling hand, patted it with his own 
rather soft, artistic one. “You must prove a good pupil, 
that is all. Remember—no mention of this when you go 
to cancel your booking—no mention of my name to any 
one. For a time we must keep the agreement to our¬ 
selves. Until you have my permission, the fact that you 
have come under my management is to remain absolutely 
unknown to any but ourselves.” 

She looked up at him wonderingly, “Anything you 
wish, of course.” 

He dropped her hand, ran his fingers once more 
through the dark thatch that persistently fell over his 
eyes. “I must have absolute faith in you, little girl,— 
and you in Oswald Kane.” 

“I—I have.” 

“That is as it should be. To-morrow, then, at noon.” 

He was gone. 

In less than twenty minutes, after the manner of such 
happenings, a miracle had been wrought. 

Elizabeth stood dazed an instant. Then she stumbled 
to the window, flung up the sash and leaned out to drink 
in the gale-slashed air with deep convulsive breaths. 

“Oh God,” she cried, tears streaming down her cheeks, 
“help me to make good. Help me—help me!” 

And so it happened that on a biting day in January, 
1917, at the stroke of twelve, Elizabeth Parsons, aged 
twenty-three, entered the sanctum sanctorum of Oswald 
Kane, was handed a pen by his business manager and 


16 


FOOTLIGHTS 


forthwith signed away five years of her life with an op¬ 
tion on the next five, at the rate of fifty dollars per week 
for the first two years, one hundred for the third, and 
one hundred and fifty for each year following. 

But just then Elizabeth would have signed away her 
whole life for nothing. 


CHAPTER II 


O N a brilliant night in January, 1920, under the 
sponsorship of Oswald Kane, Mme. Lisa Parsinova 
made her bow to an expectant New York public. 

For a long time, almost a year to be exact, Mr. Kane 
had been letting fall gentle hints of his discovery of a 
rare Russian genius, driven by the war to these shores. 
He was having her instructed in English, the story went, 
and once equal to the exigencies of emotional acting in 
a strange tongue, she would be presented by him to an 
American public which could not fail to be entranced by 
her great art. All this had been revealed in various in¬ 
terviews, bit by bit—a word here, a phrase there, a sub¬ 
tle suggestion elsewhere. At first he had not given out 
her name, had been gradually prevailed upon to do so, 
and by the time he announced the date of her premiere, 
“Mme. Lisa Parsinova” was on the lips of all that eager 
theater-going throng alert for a new sensation. 

Stories of a cloudy past had already gone the rounds, 
vaguely suggested by Mr. Kane’s press representative, not 
through the medium of the press. There were tales of 
her startling beauty, her lovers, her temper. But so far 
no one had been permitted even a glimpse of her. 

So that when she made her appearance the opening 
night, the gasp of thrilled admiration that met her was 
very genuine. The play was “The Temptress”—Orien¬ 
tal in atmosphere, written for her by Kane and a young 
collaborator whose name didn’t particularly matter. The 


18 


FOOTLIGHTS 


plot was not by any means unconventional, that of a 
slave of early Egypt wreaking revenge through the ages 
upon the descendants of the master, who, because she re¬ 
fused to yield to him, threw her to the crocodiles. 

The first act, a prologue, took place on a flagged ter¬ 
race of a palace by the slow-flowing Nile. As the curtain 
rose, faint zephyrs of incense wafted outward, a misty 
aroma. The terrace glistened under a golden moon with 
still stars piercing a sky of emerald. The tinkle of 
some far-off languorous instrument sounded soft against 
the night. And waiting, his lustful gaze on the marble 
steps, sat the master. 

Slowly, the slave descended. Sullen and silent, she 
slunk forward, like some halting panther in the night. 

Her body gleamed, golden as the moon, sinuous and 
satiny under the transparent cestus. Her bare feet 
moved noiselessly, every step one of infinite grace. She 
came forward, eyes brooding, and stood half shrinking, 
half defiant before the long stone bench where sat her 
master. Suddenly she raised her head, tossed back her 
short black hair and faced him. 

As by a signal, opera-glasses went up, a sigh of pleas¬ 
ure went through the house. The audience waited. 
She opened her lips and her voice, low and liquid, flowed 
out, thrilling through their veins. The thick contralto 
of it, the fascinating foreign accent, completely capti¬ 
vated them. 

He reached out, drew her toward him. One felt the 
wave of terror seizing her. His big hands grasped her 
shoulders. She gave a smothered cry and he laughed. 


FOOTLIGHTS 


19 


She pleaded, then resisted, and finally, voice rising like 
a viol with strings drawn taut, defied him, calling upon 
the gods to save her for the man she loved. 

And all the while he laughed, a chuckling laugh full of 
anticipation. 

At last his arms closed round the golden body, his lips 
bent to hers. The sudden gleam of a tiny dagger, its 
clatter as he caught her upraised arm,—and he flung her 
from him, clapping his hands for the eunuchs who waited. 

With one swift word he condemned her. 

She crumpled at his feet. The black men lifted her. 
She cried out in horror, a curse upon him and his through 
all the ages. 

A long moan as they bore her away, a pause, a splash 
against the silence, and the curtain descended. 

For a breath the house sat motionless. Then came a 
surge of applause. But the curtain did not rise. 

Buzz of conversation met the upgoing lights. Only a 
few, however, moved from their seats. Those who did 
came together in the lobby and discussed the new star 
with a wonder close to awe. 

“They sure can turn them out over there,” avowed 
one seasoned first nighter. “Temperament, that’s the 
answer, Slav temperament. No little cut and dried two- 
by-four conventions to tie them down. They’ve got 
something the American woman don’t know the first 
thing about.” 

“Well, they know how to let go, for one thing!” 

The curtain rose on Act II, a modern drawing-room 
in the London home of an English peer, member of Par- 


20 


FOOTLIGHTS 


liament, on the occasion of his thirty-ninth birthday. He 
entered, big, handsome, with his little, clinging English 
wife. 

There was revealed the fact that for generations the 
oldest male of his line died before the age of forty, a 
violent death. They married, there were children, and 
always reaching the prime of manhood, they were cut 
down. A curse upon his family it seemed to be and the 
little wife trembled. 

Guests dropped in to tea. With them came the an¬ 
nouncement that a prominent barrister was bringing a 
French authoress who had asked to meet their host. She 
had heard him in the House of Lords. They spoke of her 
beauty, her extraordinary personality. 

Then Mme. Parsinova appeared. In the brilliantly 
lighted set, the audience had its first good look at her. 
Slim, with a slenderness that made her seem tall, a mass 
of pitch-black hair piled high on her small head, a pair 
of burning eyes, dark and shadowed, creamy skin, a 
short nose, deep-cleft chin, and scarlet lips full and mo¬ 
bile, she seemed a living flame. She moved forward 
with gliding step, her lizard-green velvet gown clinging 
about her limbs, her sable cloak drooping from her shoul¬ 
ders. And one felt at once, as her white hand, weighted 
with a cabochon emerald, rested in his, the spell she 
would weave about the insular and very British member 
of Parliament. 

Not so insular at that, for it developed that in his 
veins ran a strain, a very thin strain, of the blood of 
Egypt. 


FOOTLIGHTS 


21 


There followed the love story, obvious if you like, but 
with the everlasting thrill and appeal of a great passion, 
magnificently portrayed. For as the drama moved to its 
climax, the spirit of the slave which through the ages had 
visited its will upon the family of its master, found itself 
captive. The French woman fell madly in love with her 
victim and in the end gave her life that the curse might 
be lifted and his saved. 

In the climactic love scene at the end of Act III when 
passion tore from her lips, an onrushing tide, the beau¬ 
tiful voice ran a crescendo of emotion that was almost 
song. Its strange accent stirred and fascinated. Its 
abandon was that of a soul giving all, sweeping aside like 
an avalanche law, thought, ultimate penalty. 

And still at the curtain, when the house rang with de¬ 
mands for her, Parsinova did not appear. Oswald Kane 
made his accustomed speech, coming before the purple 
velvet curtain to tell his audience in his usual reticent 
manner how deeply he appreciated their reception of 
the genius he had discovered. He thanked them—he 
thanked them—he thanked them. He raised a graceful 
hand, pushed back his weight of hair and slipped into the 
wings while the house resounded once more with clapping 
hands and stamping feet, and a full fifteen minutes 
elapsed before the play could go on. 

All through the final act sounded the low. note of 
tragedy, the realization that she who for centuries had 
ruthlessly taken toll must now once more be sacrificed 
that the one who had become dearer than life might 
endure. 

When the audience finally rose after another futile 



22 


FOOTLIGHTS 


attempt to bring her out, the women’s eyes were red, the 
men’s faces white. New York was undoubtedly taken 
by storm. It had been more than a typical Kane first 
night. It had been a Kane ovation. 

In the first row a man got to his feet as if shaking off 
a spell. He was tall, very erect, almost rawboned, with 
hair turning gray about the temples, a demanding jaw, 
sharp straight nose and eyes that somehow seemed 
younger than the rest of his face, younger than the bushy 
black brows that mounted over them. They had caught 
Parsinova’s gaze, those eyes, as it swept once or twice 
over the audience. They had held it longer than was 
fair to her. 

“Great, isn’t she, Rand?” His companion tapped his 
arm as he stood gazing at the fallen curtain. 

“Paralyzing,” was the laconic reply. He wheeled about 
and made his way up the aisle, followed by the other 
man. 

Outside, close to the shadowy stage entrance, Oswald 
Kane’s car, a royal blue limousine, and a curious throng 
of bystanders waited. 

Inside, Oswald Kane himself begged the circle of those 
privileged by wealth, position, influence, who clustered 
round the door of the star’s dressing-room, to excuse 
her for to-night. Madame was completely exhausted. 

When both crowds, tired of waiting, had dispersed 
two figures hurried down the little alley that led to the 
stage door and entered the limousine. 

The door slammed. 

The car rolled out and east toward Fifth Avenue. 

The man switched off the light that illumined the 


FOOTLIGHTS 


23 


woman’s white face. Her dark-shadowed eyes were 
burning with excitement. She leaned back, closing them, 
and heaved a great sigh. He leaned forward, hair falling 
over his eyes, echoed the sigh, and his hand shut tightly 
round her ungloved one. With a tense, almost nervous 
movement she drew it away, shrank imperceptibly into 
her corner. 

“They are at your feet,” he whispered. “I have made 
you.” 

She did not answer—merely opened her eyes and 
looked at him and through the darkness, something like 
tears glistened on the lashes. 

They drove on in silence. He recaptured her hand, 
held it to his lips. She looked away. 

The car drew up before a modest apartment building 
in a side street. He helped her out, entered with her, 
and the elevator swung them upward. He made a move¬ 
ment for the key she took from her bag but she unlocked 
the door and led the way into the foyer. 

Slowly he reached up, lifted the fur toque from her 
black hair and the wrap from her shoulders, and his 
touch lingered caressingly as he turned her toward 
him. 

“You are my creation!” he told her. “Parsinova can¬ 
not exist without me.” 

Into the throat of the great Russian actress with the 
questionable past came a flutter of fear. Her lips quiv¬ 
ered. She gave a convulsive choking sound. Her eyes 
raced the length of the hall as though she wanted to run 
away, then went pleading up to his. He smiled down 
into them, drew her firmly to him. 


24 


FOOTLIGHTS 


With a swift, hysterical laugh, a twist of her body, she 
was out of his arms and across the foyer. 

“Come,” she called. 

She opened a door at the other side. The gold flames 
of a log fire played upon the face of the little gray-haired 
woman in dusky silk who rose to greet her. 

“Mother,” said Parsinova, “kiss your child and thank 
Mr. Kane. I think I’ve made a hit.” 

Oswald Kane watched with a frown as she held out her 
arms adoringly to the little old woman. 

For over a year the little mother had had a way of 
appearing in the background whenever he claimed the 
few sentimental hours which should have been but small 
acknowledgment of his new pupil’s debt to him. 


CHAPTER III 


P ARSINOVA instantly became the rage. 

She gave delicious interviews in which she misap¬ 
plied American slang in a way that made the press 
chuckle. She spoke of the tragedy of Russia. She told 
of her struggles there. She gave her impressions of the 
American theater; American art; American fashions; the 
energy of the American man; the vitality of the Ameri¬ 
can woman. 

“They do not give as we foreign women,” she said. 
“They take. And so it is that they grow rich—in 
beauty—and are forever young.” 

“But emotionally?” prompted the interviewer. 

“I have said—they are forever young. Emotionally 
—they are children always.” 

This statement was followed by indignant protest from 
American actresses and the sort of heated dramatic con¬ 
troversy that delighted the soul of Oswald Kane. 

She received all reporters in her dressing-room at the 
theater. If any one save Kane knew where she lived, no 
one had ever crossed the sacred threshold. 

“I live two lives quite a-part,” she said. “One in my 
home which is for me a-lone. And one in the theater 
which is for my dear public.” 

Mr. Kane amplified this by stating that her hours at 
home were spent in study. Others intimated that her 
hours at home were given to some mysterious romance. 
In spite of which she was not a hermit. Society, with 

25 



26 


FOOTLIGHTS 


a capital S, sought the privilege of entertaining her. 
Occasionally she accepted a dinner invitation—never on 
any day but Sunday, however—or permitted a tea to 
be given in her honor. She went nowhere during the 
week. 

Her dressing-room was always fragrant with flowers. 
Kane had had it done over when she took possession. 
An alcove had been cut off for her make-up table, and the 
orchid silken drapes, black rug, suspended lights and 
carved chairs of the outer room gave it more the impres¬ 
sion of a salon. Here she held court. Here she read 
the hysterical notes of matinee girls, the pleas of dilletanti 
youth that she dine or sup with them, the tributes of 
actors, the encomium of the world in general. Here, 
every week or so, she went into tantrums, threatening to 
kill her maid in a voice that caused the stage hands to 
tremble, until Kane himself had to be called to calm her. 
Here she smoked Russian cigarettes and looked over the 
urgent invitations that piled mountain high upon the 
bronze tray. 

It was only at home in a cretonne hung bedroom, fur¬ 
nished with a rigid fourposter and dotted swiss curtains 
through which sunlight flowed, that she wept and some¬ 
times felt lonely. 

She played of course to packed houses. The S. R. O. 
sign was a common occurrence. More than once in that 
same place in the front row, the footlights illumined the 
face of the man whose intent gaze had fastened on hers 
the opening night. He seemed never to tire of her art. 

Early in March Mrs. Collingwood Martin gave a re¬ 
ception for her. Mrs. Julian van Ness Collingwood 


FOOTLIGHTS 


27 


Martin flattered herself, with justification, that in her 
wide old house facing Washington Square she maintained 
the nearest approach to a salon that could be found this 
side of Paris. 

Her high drawing-room brought together leading 
spirits of the professional, business and diplomatic worlds, 
and her gracefully tinted head was never troubled with 
fear that the wrong ones might meet. All those on her 
selected list were the right ones, each interested in what 
the other represented. Many a little coup between the 
artiste and the financier is consummated under the guise 
of drinking a cup of tea or punch. And more than one 
professional has amassed a neat little fortune by making 
wide-eyed queries of the Wall Street man about his end of 
the game. 

On the afternoon in question the rooms on the lower 
floor were crowded with laughter, perfume, silks, jewels, 
furs and the hum of animated voices. 

Bowls of early spring bloom, azaleas, jonquils, mam¬ 
moth daisies, stood on tables and at either side of the 
arched doorway. A faint blue haze of cigarette smoke 
hung overhead. Twilight had sifted through sunlight be¬ 
fore Parsinova appeared. She always came late. 

As she stood, a silhouette within the white arch be¬ 
tween the shining bowls of jonquils, there was a general 
hush, then a forward movement. She was gowned 
entirely in black—black lace trailing from her feet, a 
black hat shadowing her face, and drooping from it to 
curl against her shoulder, a black paradise. Black pearls 
dangled from her ears and a strand of them about her 
neck emphasized its whiteness. 


28 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“Isn’t she wonderful? What personality—what atmos¬ 
phere!” 

“There’s no one like her.” 

“She fairly oozes temperament.” 

“Absolutely startling!” 

“By Jove—these foreigners! Naughty but—er—so 
promising, don’t you know!” 

Mrs. Collingwood Martin bore her triumphantly to a 
thronelike chair and presented the guests in turn. 

Parsinova’s manner was charming, a bit weary but gra¬ 
cious, and her efforts to carry on a conversation in 
colloquial English were excruciating. 

“That lit-tie French gentleman by the punch bowl,— 
I fear he has on a biscuit,” she told the group of adorers. 

They looked puzzled. Then one of them flung back 
his head with a laugh. “You mean he has a bun on.” 

“I shall never be right,” she sighed in the chorus of 
laughter that followed. 

From the music-room came a clear tenor singing the 
“Ave Maria.” Silence met the lifted voice and at the 
final sobbing note, gentle applause. 

Mrs. Collingwood Martin swept toward her guest of 
honor. 

“Darling,” she smiled with that touch of privileged in¬ 
timacy she loved to assume, “here is some one most anx¬ 
ious to meet you. Let me present Signor Luigi Rogero 
of the Metropolitan.” 

Parsinova looked up and out from under dropped lids. 
Then she wondered whether any one saw the start'she 
gave. Facing her with lips bent to her outstretched hand 
stood Lou Seabury. 



FOOTLIGHTS 


29 


No mistaking him in spite of the close-fitting coat, 
carefully waxed little mustache and black-ribboned 
monocle! Due to a New York tailor’s art, his plump 
figure had grown slimmer. In place of the loose dis¬ 
jointed shamble of old home days, he bore himself with 
consummate savoir jaire. But the pink cheeks and kind 
brown eyes were the same. 

Parsinova waited breathlessly for some sign of recog¬ 
nition. None came. In perfect English he merely 
voiced his satisfaction at the meeting and joined the 
group about her chair. It was not until she rose to 
leave and he craved the honor of escorting her to her car 
that she met his gaze with curious question in her own. 
But his eyes were blank so far as any subtle meaning 
was concerned. 

He followed down the steps, helped her into the per¬ 
fectly appointed limousine. An impulse she made no 
attempt to curb prompted her to ask if she could drive 
him uptown. They had gone several blocks before either 
spoke. Then very low came the words:— 

“Lizzie Parsons,—you’re a wonder!” 

Instinctively she looked about to make sure his 
whisper had not been overheard. Then she gave a long, 
smothered laugh and clutched his hand just as she had 
that night in the three-a-day vaudeville theater. 

“Lou,” she breathed, “I’m so glad, so glad!” 

“Were you surprised to see me?” 

“Surprised? I almost died.” She gave a little gasp. 
“Were you surprised to see me?” 

“Not a bit.” 

“You knew me then—at once?” 


30 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“I’ve known who you were ever since your opening. 
I was there. Matter of fact, I have you to thank for the 
brilliant idea that made me an Italian.” 

“Me?” 

“Yep.” He lapsed into the old lingo and she 
closed her eyes with a beatific smile. “You don’t think 
my brains would ever be equal to such an inspira¬ 
tion.” 

“Mine weren’t either. It was Oswald Kane’s.” 

“Nobody would ever guess that you’re anything but 
Russian from the word go.” 

“You did.” 

“That was only because I’d known you. And even 
then I mightn’t have been on if I hadn’t heard your imi¬ 
tations. Do you remember that night?” 

“Do I remember it! That was the night that ‘made 
me what I am to-day.’ ” 

He laughed. 

“I did my best to please you,” she went on, “and 
Oswald Kane was in front and liked my act. He came 
back afterward and arranged to sign me.” 

“So that was why you left me cold. I dated you for 
supper and went round after the show, to find my bird 
had flown. Believe me, I was the most disappointed 
rube in town.” 

“I wouldn’t have remembered my own name after 
Kane saw me.” 

“Is that why you canned it?” 

She laughed then, her low, rich contralto. “That was 
all his plan. I was as amazed when he told me about it 
as if he’d asked me to change my skin. He’s never told 


FOOTLIGHTS 


31 


me why he did it—he doesn’t trouble to tell you why. 
But I suppose he thought the public needed a thrill, 
something new, something different. And my imper¬ 
sonations gave him the idea. I think I might have 
made good if he had let me go on as just plain Parsons. 
But of course, not half the hit that Parsinova has 
made.” 

“They sure are crazy about you. I wondered often 
how you were getting on.” 

“You didn’t guess that somebody was making a new 
woman of me, did you?” 

His gaze, as it traveled from her dark-rimmed eyes 
shadowed by the drooping hat, to the long white hands 
and slim black-swathed body, held the same look of awe 
it had worn the night he had seen her make up. 

“Lordy, girl!” he gasped. “How you must have 
worked to accomplish it!” 

“Work!” came in a breath. “I worked like a galley 
slave—never stopping, except for sleep. Even while I 
ate I studied—Russian and French, and gesture and 
movement. I even learned to eat herring. And all the 
time he was teaching me to act. In four years—almost 
•—I’ve seen no one, talked to no one but him. I’ve had 
to obliterate self completely. He has in reality created 
Lisa Parsinova.” 

“He had to have the material to do it. The stuff was 
there.” 

“But he is a genius, Lou. He knows his public just as 
a magician knows his bag of tricks.” 

The traffic at Thirty-fourth Street halted them. They 
spoke in whispers, and every now and then her eyes 


32 FOOTLIGHTS 

rested with a look of caution on the inexpressive back of 
her chauffeur. 

“Do you think he can hear? 5 ’ she asked. 

“ ’Course not.” 

“I have to be so careful.” 

She turned to him, eyes alight with interest as they 
started on up the Avenue. “Tell me about yourself. 
You’re another man, too.” 

“Dad died shortly after I saw you,” he explained. 
“Apoplexy. And I thought of you, the break you had 
made, the gamble you took. So I gathered together what 
he left me, sold out to my brother Jim, and came to New 
York to stake everything on that voice you took such 
stock in. I went to Fernald and he thought he could do 
something with it. I’ve been in training so to speak ever 
since. And this season he got me the job with the 
Metropolitan.” 

“If only I could hear you!” 

“Oh, I haven’t done much—not yet. A few matinees 
and one or two Saturday nights. Next year, though, 
they’ve promised me a go at leads.” 

“I knew if ever you had the chance you’d prove your¬ 
self.” 

“I owe a great part of that chance to Randolph,—you 
know, Hubert Randolph. He’s one of the directors of 
the Metropolitan. I met him at Fernald’s studio last 
winter and it was through him that Fernald pushed me. 
He’s interested in you, by the way,—thinks you’re the 
greatest actress of the century.” 

“The century is very young,” she smiled. 

“Well, Rand’s seen them all in the last fifteen or 


FOOTLIGHTS 


33 


twenty years and knows what he’s talking about. 
We were at your opening together and he said then you 
were paralyzing.” 

“Did I do that to you, too?” 

“Paralyze me? Bet your life you did! When you 
walked out on that stage and raised your head, a ramrod 
went up my back. ‘That’s Lizzie Parsons,’ I said to my¬ 
self, ‘or I’ll be shot.’ Then I thought I must be loony, 
that when I’d see you in a better light without the short 
wig, I’d laugh at my mistake. But in the second act I 
knew I was right, in spite of the black hair—” 

“It’s dyed, Lou.” She made the confession haltingly. 
“At first I didn’t want to. My hair seemed sort of part 
of me—the color, I mean. But that’s just why he made 
me do it; it was a question of personality, he said. I 
begged him to let me wear a wig but he was afraid it 
would be detected. And he was right, I dare say. He’s 
always right.” 

“Don’t you worry about the way it looks, either. You 
used to be just pretty. Now you’re a beauty!” 

“Am I—really?” There was a childish earnestness in 
the query. 

“Should have heard Randolph rave! Say, I’m dining 
with him to-night. Why not come along? He’s crazy to 
meet you and he won’t go to any of those society fan¬ 
dangles to do it.” 

“Meet a stranger—with you around? Oh—I 
couldn’t! I’d burst into straight English as naturally as 
you burst into song. And that would ruin me.” 

He patted her hand and his kind brown eyes beamed. 
“Nonsense! You’re too clever an actress for that.” 



34 


FOOTLIGHTS 


There was something pathetic in the way she clung to 
his handclasp. “It’s so good finding you this way. I 
haven’t any friends—no one to whom I can actually talk. 
With me it isn’t a case of acting behind the footlights. 
I’m acting all the time, except when I’m alone.” 

“But it’s not acting any more—this Russian business, 
is it?” 

“No—it’s myself, the greater part of self, I dare say. 
But Lizzie Parsons isn’t all dead yet and I don’t want her 
to die—” She blinked up at him. “Don’t make me cry, 
please,—or the shadows will all come off my eyes.” 

His eyes took in the luxurious appointment of the car, 
mauve enameled vanity apparatus on one side, smoking 
outfit on the other, gilt vase with its spray of fresh or¬ 
chids, soft tan cushions and robe of fur. He gave her 
a warming look of satisfaction. 

“I should say the exchange was all for the better. 
You must be making a mint.” 

“One hundred and fifty a week.” 

“One hundred and fifty—?” 

“That’s my contract.” 

“But good Lord—” 

“Oh, I made it with my eyes open. It extends over 
the first five years—with an option on the next five.” 

“But all this—” He waved his arm, bewildered, 
through the air. 

“All this he gives me—my clothes, my car and its up¬ 
keep, my jewels, though they’re mostly paste, everything 
except my home. I wouldn’t let him give me that.” 

He made an attempt to conceal the swift suspicion that 


FOOTLIGHTS 35 

would have clouded any man’s eyes. Instantly she saw 
and answered it. 

“Oh, don’t misunderstand! It’s purely a matter of 
business. I’ve got to be equipped to play my part off 
the stage and I don’t earn enough to do it on my own.” 

“Then why doesn’t he give you enough?” 

“I should probably grow too independent. This way 
he holds the reins. That’s only supposition, of course. 
I’ve never discussed it. One can’t discuss money with 
Oswald Kane.” 

“It’s a damned outrage!” 

“Oh, no it isn’t. He took a sporting chance. He 
staked time and effort and money on a venture that 
might have proved a hopeless failure. I had everything 
to gain. And now that I’ve made good under his guid¬ 
ance, it’s only fair that he should reap the harvest.” 

“Indefinitely?” 

“For six years to come, at any rate,—until my con¬ 
tract expires.” She leaned back, eyes closed, and an 
intensely weary look dropped the corners of her red, 
mobile mouth. 

They drew near the park. She urged him to ride with 
her a bit and they drove into the blue velvet dusk, past 
the shimmer of lake curled among the bushes. The car 
glided on swiftly through cool dark silence. 

“You haven’t told me yet how I inspired you to become 
an Italian,” she prompted. 

“Oh, that—simple enough! Randolph remarked the 
night of your premiere that there was an aura of romance 
about artistes from the other side, particularly when they 


36 


FOOTLIGHTS 


hailed from Southern Europe; sort of Oriental, you un¬ 
derstand. The next day I went to Fernald. ‘Can’t you 
change me to something Italian?’ I said. ‘Seabury’s a 
rotten name for an opera singer.’ Well, he did it. Of 
course, I make no attempt at accent—I couldn’t handle 
that job in conversation. But the people I’ve met don’t 
look for it; they understand the fact that I was brought 
up in England. All I have to be careful of is my gram¬ 
mar.” 

They laughed together. As her laugh bubbled 
girlishly into the quiet night, she halted it with a swift 
movement of hand to lips and once more sent that look 
of caution at her chauffeur’s back. 

He reminded her of his dinner engagement with Ran¬ 
dolph. “He’s made up his mind to know you informally. 
And that’s all he has to do to get what he wants. He’s a 
human dynamo, that man. Never knew anybody with 
his finger in so many pies and able to put over whatever 
he tackles. Sooner or later you’re bound to meet him 
in his own way. Might as well be to-night.” 

“What good would it do? He’ll never know me— 
the real me.” 

“He’ll know a fascinating woman, any way you look at 
it.” 

But she dropped him at the bachelor apartment on 
Park Avenue in spite of his pleas. 

“Come and see me, Lou, often,” she murmured, giving 
him her address as he stepped out of the car. “You 
don’t know what a joy it is to play at being myself.” 


CHAPTER IV 


I T was inevitable that Parsinova should meet Hubert 
Randolph, as Lou Seabury had prophesied. It was 
not inevitable that he should prove to be the man whose 
intent gaze had held hers from the first row. But when 
one considers that Randolph had determined from the 
moment he saw her to know her in an unprofessional 
capacity, his accomplishment of that end was in the 
natural order of things. 

Hubert Randolph was not a self-made man. He had 
succeeded, made his name stand firm in the humming 
world of finance, in spite of the handicap of having been 
born to the purple. Early in his boyhood he had started 
out to forget that he was a Hamilton Randolph and he 
had been forgetting it satisfactorily ever since. At 
Harvard he had become the pal of men who tutored in 
their leisure hours, thereby improving his mind. Also, 
he had never taken the trouble to inform them to which 
particular Randolph family he belonged. It was unim¬ 
portant. He had spent a winter in a shack in Arizona, 
partly for his health, but largely to familiarize himself 
with the workings of a matrix mine in which the Ran¬ 
dolphs had an interest. He had chummed with the 
miners, chewed tobacco and acquired a red-bronze that 
had never quite worn off. 

He had climbed Pike’s Peak, had shot big game in the 
Andes. And then he had come back to civilization and 
taken a clerkship in the brokerage offices of Parker, 

37 


38 FOOTLIGHTS 

Gaines and McCaffery, to study banking methods from 
the bottom up. 

At thirty-eight, or it may have been thirty-nine, he 
was an authority on banking, stood ace high in Wash¬ 
ington, and was known as a patron of the arts. The 
Randolph family never understood why he had gone to 
all that bother. It was so old, so distinguished, that to 
have a member attempt to distinguish it further was al¬ 
most an insult. However, Rand, as he was known 
among intimates, never troubled to consult the family 
as to his movements. He saw as little of them as pos¬ 
sible. 

“Don’t concern yourself about me,” he was in the habit 
of telling his sister when she tried to propel him in the 
direction of one of her parties. “I’m a hopeless sort of 
devil who likes to choose his own friends.” 

Once she persuaded him to attend a tea and he ap¬ 
peared with a youth in a shiny coat and cuffs that 
separated from his shirt. 

“He’s a coming violinist,” he whispered. “I thought 
you’d like him to play. But he’s hungry—give him 
something^ to eat first.” 

She never attempted to persuade him after that. 

Parsinova met Hubert Randolph in a funny little res¬ 
taurant which years back had been a stable. It was con¬ 
ducted by a group of painters for the benefit of a Dis¬ 
abled Veteran’s Relief Fund all their own. He had ar¬ 
ranged the party for the Sunday following her meeting 
with Seabury but it took her old friend another week to 
convince her that she could carry it through. 

The occasion was not propitious. She had had a bad 


FOOTLIGHTS 


39 


half hour that afternoon with Kane when he resented the 
omnipresence of her mother. 

“She annoys me. She seems to be behind you like a 
shadow. You must send her away! Some one is bound 
to discover her.” 

“That is impossible. She goes nowhere, sees no one. 
I shall keep her here.” Parsinova’s eyes glittered and 
for a moment it seemed likely that a backstage tantrum 
would be duplicated in fact. 

So that when she fastened the short black satin dress 
up the front into a high collar under her ears and pulled 
the brim of her black satin hat in a shading dip, it was in 
a mood that omened no particularly cordial reception of 
Mr. Hubert Randolph. 

Seabury called for her and Randolph met them in the 
cobbled courtyard that led to their unique dining place. 
In the dark she did not recognize him. But as they 
stood in the doorway where an old lantern swung, she 
stopped and peered at him. 

“I have seen you be-fore!” 

“Have you?” 

“Many times—in the firs’ row. And you look’ as if— 
you like me.” 

“I do,” came promptly with a smile. 

“No—no,” her eyes gave him a piquant uptilt, “my 
art, I mean to say. Me—you do not know.” 

“I’m going to.” 

He led the way indoors. She glanced about and 
her mood dissolved into a new interest. First the man, 
then the charm of this quaint place. The stalls had! 
been left standing and in each a table was set. Over 



40 


FOOTLIGHTS 


each from the beamed ceiling swung a lantern 
similar to the one outside. There were no brilliant 
lights, no noises of clinking glass and silver. 

She slid along the upholstered seat that lined the stall 
to the place he indicated at the table’s head. The men 
seated themselves at either side. 

“This is great, Rand,” remarked Seabury. “How is it 
you never brought me here?” 

“I saved it for Madame. What does she think of 
it?” 

“Fas-scinating. I feel quite like a thorough-bred 
horse.” Then she looked at him gratefully. “And one 
is not—on ex-hibition.” 

“I don’t want to exhibit you,” rejoined her host. 
“You’ll find that out.” 

She did find it out in the weeks that followed. They 
dined frequently at “The Mews,” sometimes with Sea¬ 
bury, more often alone. 

At first she protested. She could not! But in the end 
Randolph won out. They arrived always at six when the 
place was practically empty and by seven-thirty she was 
at the theater. 

As the weather turned warmer they drove occasionally 
to the country and back in time for the performance. 
She never permitted him to call for her but arranged to 
meet him at the theater. They never went to con¬ 
spicuous hotels or restaurants. He seemed to enjoy 
being with her away from the stare of the world. One 
Sunday in April when they had planned to lunch at 
an inn that dots the shore of the Hudson, he appeared 
with two hampers and announced that they were 


FOOTLIGHTS 


41 


going to picnic. They left the car at the top of a slope, 
scrambled down and unpacked the baskets with the antic¬ 
ipation of boy and girl off for a holiday. She pulled off 
her hat with its floating veil and sat cross-legged on the 
rug he had spread under a willow tree. 

Sitting there watching him, this man so intensely real, 
so intensely himself, a sense of infinite sadness swept 
over her. She wanted just for to-day to drop all sham. 
Not that her pose was ever difficult. Like all affectation 
used incessantly, she was no longer conscious of it. It 
was herself. But in these rare days spent with Randolph 
in the brimming sunlight, soft with young green things, 
she wanted with a ridiculously hopeless yearning to let 
him glimpse Elizabeth Parsons, the girl who would have 
let her hair fly in the wind for sheer joy of springtime, 
the girl who lived only in hidden moments. 

Sometimes she compromised by letting Parsinova ex¬ 
press Elizabeth’s thoughts, her ideals, separating the two 
women only by the breadth of an accent. Often she 
caught him looking at her curiously, as if trying to link 
some simply expressed idea of living with the reputation 
of the woman sitting opposite him. But more frequently 
they were content to enjoy the moment, tramping through 
the woods, discovering new sun-flecked trails, drinking 
in the sweetness of April and companionship. 

He had suggested that he stop for her at her home but 
she put him off with excuses, obvious and sometimes 
lame. 

Once he reproached her. 

“Why don’t you let me come to see you?” 

“You can—at any time you wish.” 



42 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“Not at the theater. When I worship you, I like it to 
be from the other side of the footlights.” 

“Oh! Then what is it you wish to do on this side?” 

“Adore you! And you haven’t even told me what 
street you live in.” 

“Then it should be quite ea-sy. One adores that 
which one knows least a-bout.” 

“In other words a man loves what he doesn’t under¬ 
stand and likes what he does?” 

“That is ex-actly what I wish to say. Is it not 
strange?—when a man wish’ to make a woman love him, 
he say :—‘Mon adoree, you are such a my-stery to me.’ 
And when a woman wish’ to make a man love her, she 
tell him :—‘Mon amour , I understan’ you per-fec’ly.’ ” 

He gave a ringing laugh, then leaned across the table. 

“Your foreign men have a dozen ways of telling a 
woman they want her love. We Americans, when we 
care—the real thing—are awkward as boys and a little 
afraid.” 

“A-fraid?” Parsinova’s eyes were wondering, while 
Elizabeth Parsons’ soul cried out that she, too, could know 
such fear. “But why?” 

“Less experience.” 

Her eyes laughed into his then. “The Latin in love is 
an art-iste,—the American an art-i-san. Is that what 
you wish to say?” 

“Have you ever heard that Ade classic?— 

T never run from the man behind the eun, 

Tho’ other chaps are cowards, 

As for me—not! 

But my courage fades away, 


FOOTLIGHTS 


43 


And I don’t know what to say, 

When I meet the little girl 
Behind the tea-pot/ ” 

“Me-not. Tea-pot/’ she repeated with a frown of 
concentration in which lurked a smile. “How ver-y 
droll your classics are.” 

His rather severe mouth lifted with a whimsical twist. 
“After all, it resolves itself into this—a man fears, not 
what a woman is, but what she seems to be.” 

Parsinova met the steady gaze with a quick startled 
look and bit her lip to keep it from quivering. But his 
next words answered the unspoken question that for a 
second shook her perfect poise. 

“I wonder—” he said slowly, “I wonder if you’re as 
simple as you seem complex.” 

She did not reply at once, did not lift her eyes. They 
wandered out through the wide window to the sheen of 
river and hazy Palisades in the distance. Randolph had 
driven her out to Longue Vue at the hour when the sun 
slides lazily into soft spring shadows. 

“Why do you think me—as you say—com-plex?” 
She lifted her eyes and the sun slanted across them. 
Perhaps that was why he failed to give her a direct 
answer. 

“Odd,” he observed, “I didn’t guess you had gray eyes. 
They look so dark from the stage. They’re wonderful 
eyes at close inspection, by the way.” 

“Are they, too,—com-plex?” 

“Full of secrets.” 

“Ah, but there you are wrong—quite wrong, my friend. 




44 


FOOTLIGHTS 


Most of their life they ’ave given to study. What 
secret’ could they possess?” 

She hated herself while she said it, hated Kane and the 
stage and the success she had made. But most of all she 
hated Elizabeth Parsons for allowing Parsinova to dom¬ 
inate her. To this one man she wanted so devoutly to 
reveal herself as she was. Ridiculous, of course, the 
desire—for it was Parsinova who charmed him. That 
was all too evident. 

The hours she loved best were those in which he told 
her of his travels, his life in the West. In that she could 
evince an interest that was sincere. She could picture 
him in rough flannel shirt and corduroy trousers, hob¬ 
nobbing with the miners, one of them. He was the true 
democrat, eager to learn first-hand instead of living by 
proxy. 

She would draw him out, welcoming the opportunity 
to be for the moment Elizabeth Parsons, if only as a 
listener. 

When he left her at the theater that evening, he 
startled her by saying abruptly: 

“I’m coming to dine with you next Sunday.” 

It was just as he helped her out of the car and she 
stopped short, hand still in his. “You—are coming—?” 

“That’s it, in your home. Oh, I’ve found out where 
you live. But I had a notion that I’d like you to tell 
me.” 

“How—did you find out?” 

“Had you followed, perhaps. At any rate, you can’t 
keep me away any longer.” 

“You—you must not come.” 


FOOTLIGHTS 


45 


He regarded her closely, his thick brows coming to¬ 
gether. “Is there any particular reason why you shut 
me out?” 

She remembered suddenly that her hand was still in his. 
His tense grip was hurting her. 

“Please!” She made a futile effort to draw it away. 

“Is there?” 

“Many—reasons.” Her lips hesitated over the words. 

“Any one reason, I should say.” 

In spite of herself, she looked up at him. “No—one.” 

“Right, then. Sunday next.” 

He dropped her hand quickly, stepped back into the 
car. 

The next three days she spent buying high-backed 
cathedral chairs and carved tables and tabourets for her 
living-room. Down came the cretonne hangings and up 
went heavy purple velvet ones that shut out the blessed 
light of day. She selected a black rug that made the 
room look hideously somber and for the divan, gold cush¬ 
ions weighted with tassels. When she finished, she 
had consumed several months’ salary. But the trans¬ 
formation was complete. Once more Elizabeth Parsons 
was wiped off this mortal sphere. Soon no shadow would 
be left of her, not even in the sacred nook she had saved 
to call “home.” 

With an anxiety close to terror she waited for Hubert 
Randolph. She was wearing white, soft, creamy, float¬ 
ing. There ought, at least, be some spot of light in the 
mysteriously shadowed room. 

He came at seven. She went to the door herself and 
let him into the little foyer. His eyes were alight with 


46 


FOOTLIGHTS 


eagerness. They had the look of a small boy’s bound 
for a fishing trip on Sunday. 

He caught her hand. “You know how glad I am to 
be here.” 

“You know,” she rejoined to her own surprise, “how I 
am glad—for you to be here.” 

He followed into the living-room. “Odd,” he ob¬ 
served almost to himself, “I’ve pictured it often—but not 
like this. I’d an idea of light things—woman things 
about you.” 

She could have laughed with sardonic glee at the 
thought of how she had dragged down those light, woman 
things and spent a small fortune to create another atmos¬ 
phere. 

“But on the whole,” he proceeded speculatively, “these 
' are you, aren’t they?” 

“A woman is so man-y things—so man-y moods, I wish 
to say—that there is no one room can express her.” 

Her apartment was in one of those modern houses 
where dinner is cooked by a chef downstairs and sent up 
via the dumbwaiter. To Parsinova this had proved a 
convenience, saving as it did the necessity of curious 
servants. To-night she had arranged for one of the 
waiters from the restaurant below to serve them. But 
in spite of him, noiselessly in the background, it was a 
cozy, intimate little party that somehow brought them 
closer than all their former dinners. The small table set 
in a corner of the living-room, its glistening silver and 
lacy feminine damask, the dishes she had herself ordered, 
created a sense of home dangerous to the peace of mind 
of an actress wedded to her art. 


FOOTLIGHTS 


47 


To crown the illusion, when the cafe noir had been 
served and the waiter disappeared, Randolph pulled 
a pipe from his pocket and asked if he might light it. 
“I’ve always wondered what it would be like to smoke a 
pipe with you.” 

“But I do not—smoke a pipe.” 

“Don’t interpret me so literally. A pipe means fire¬ 
side, something intimate and real. I’ve always thought 
it would be nice, one of these days, to see your face 
through pipe smoke. May I?” 

She nodded, curled on a cushion by the fire. It was a 
rainy night. The logs whirred merrily. “Now—tell me 
more about your won-der-ful West.” She lighted a 
cigarette and listened, eyes partly closed, and a sweet 
tranquillity bathed her soul. 

He pulled his chair closer. Unconsciously, perhaps, 
her head dropped against the arm. If a moment later 
she felt a hand lightly caress her hair, she gave no sign. 
Parsinova fans would undoubtedly have been amazed at 
the scene—the Russian actress curled like a kitten at 
the foot of a man’s chair while he painted with broad 
strokes pictures of prairie life. 

It was what he did just as he was leaving that 
shattered her serenity like an explosion. They were 
standing in the foyer and she had given him her hand 
with her “Good-night,” when suddenly she was in his 
arms. They closed round her, swept her to him and his 
lips were on hers. For a long moment they stood so. 
Then, without a word, he put her at arm’s length, held 
her eyes with a look whose intensity she found impossible 
to read. An instant later she was alone. 


48 


FOOTLIGHTS 


But those few moments brought her up sharp. Hours 
afterward she felt the vice of his arms gripping her, the 
thrill of his kiss, and knew that she loved him. Sub¬ 
consciously she had known it a long time. But she had 
never faced the issue. Content with a comradeship dear 
to both Elizabeth Parsons and Lisa Parsinova, she had 
drifted without any forward look, without taking count 
of what payment the future might exact. And now the 
hour had come. Elizabeth Parsons, who had never loved 
before, loved Hubert Randolph. Hubert Randolph 
loved Parsinova who, according to all report, had loved 
many times and with not too much reserve. Long hours 
she lay staring into the blank darkness of her room. Out 
of it she could draw nothing but misery. 

Heretofore she had accepted Parsinova’s manu¬ 
factured past without question. Now it was a lurid 
flame, flaring through the smoke of all reasoning, tor¬ 
turing her—more real because it was unreal. Had it 
been fact, there would be no problem. As things were, 
it was the ghost at the banquet, a ghost of that which 
had never been. And there was no solution! There 
never would be! 

Elizabeth Parsons was New England. It was part of 
her plan of life to marry when she loved. That was as 
fundamental as the blood in her veins. The very inten¬ 
sity of emotion of which she was capable was reexpressed 
in her intensity of adherence to the moral conduct gen¬ 
erations of upright-living ancestors had laid down for her. 
From that there could be no swerving. It was part of 
her. 

Throughout the dragging hours of that night she tried 


FOOTLIGHTS 


49 


desperately to read into the embrace of the man who had 
taken her love, some interpretation other than the ob¬ 
vious. And suddenly it came to her that even granted he 
might possibly be willing to give her his name, it was im¬ 
possible for her to accept it. He did not know Elizabeth 
Parsons—would not, if he did, evince the slightest 
interest in her. It was the Russian actress he adored, 
the woman she was not. If he wanted her and she 
dared to marry him, she would have to live day and night 
a lie she could not—and what was more, would not— 
carry through. In love she would have to be herself. 
Brilliant as was her Slav rendering of it on the stage, in 
life she was just an American girl who wanted to live it 
with all her soul. When he took Parsinova in his arms, 
he would be holding Lizzie Parsons. The sophisticated 
Russian lips against his would be giving him New Eng¬ 
land kisses. Well—not quite that! But one certainty 
she must face. To the man who had fallen in love with 
the Russian actress, the American girl would mean less 
than nothing. She hated her! In the confusion of her 
soul she did not know which hated the other more. 

Had there been any doubt in her mind as to the hope¬ 
lessness of her situation, Oswald Kane himself pounded 
the last nail in the coffin a few days later. A chatty little 
sheet given to imparting information about important 
people had got wind of Randolph’s devotion. It an¬ 
nounced subtly that the walls the Russian actress had 
built up between herself and American men had evidently 
been shattered by one who heretofore had evinced but 
slight interest in the beauties of his own set. It hinted 
at their runs in his car out of New York and wondered 


50 


FOOTLIGHTS 


amiably whether he intended converting his bungalow up 
Westchester way into a dovecote. 

The day it appeared on the news-stands Oswald Kane 
paid her an early visit. For the first time she saw him 
with his smooth exterior ruffled. It was a matinee day 
and she was having an eleven o’clock breakfast when he 
arrived. A note from Randolph asking why she had re¬ 
fused to see him the day before lay on the table beside 
her plate. She looked tired and her eyes needed no arti¬ 
ficial shadows. 

Kane came into the room, then turned and stared at 
the new furnishings. 

“Do you like it?” she asked. “I’ve had it done over.” 

“Why?” 

“I thought it safe—in case any one should find me out 
and drop in.” 

“Some one has found you out.” He handed her the 
society sheet, open at the pointed paragraph that con¬ 
cerned her. 

“I should like to know,” he began, his mellow voice 
going sharp, “who the man is.” 

She hastily slipped Randolph’s note into the pocket of 
her dress. “I should like to be able to tell you.” 

“You mean he does not exist.” 

“I mean that if he did, it would be quite my own affair, 
wouldn’t it?” 

“No. If you play a dangerous game and lose, Oswald 
Kane loses with you. If any man discovers the truth 
about you, it means your professional death as well as 
mine.” 

“You need never worry—about that.” 


FOOTLIGHTS 


51 


Whether it was the hopeless note in her voice or the 
look in her eyes, his voice softened. He went close to 

her. 

“There is just one,” he whispered, “who knows you as 
you are. Lisa Parsinova has the right to no man’s love 
but Oswald Kane’s. Forget those New England preju¬ 
dices!” 

She dropped quickly into a chair. “Lisa Parsinova 
has the right to no man’s love at all.” 

Her eyes closed. Her voice went on monotonously. 

“You see, I’ve thought it all out. I’ve swamped the 
girl I was and it’s as final as if I’d killed her. One of 
these days, perhaps—when my contract with you has 
been filled—Parsinova will sail back to Russia or be 
drowned or something, and out of her ashes will rise a 
spinster named Lizzie Parsons who doesn’t really matter, 
who’ll just pass out—alone. But until then you are 
quite safe. Only—please—never speak again of—of 
loving me.” 

Kane bowed. “You are a great artiste, in spite of 
that. And at least you cannot deny me the joy of the 
creator.” 

“I shall never forget what you’ve done for me. I shall 
never betray you in any way.” 

She kept her word to the letter. Had she followed 
inclination she would have gone through her perform¬ 
ances mechanically. A numbness had taken hold of her, 
of utter misery, utter futility. But her work did not fall 
off in brilliance. Particularly in the love scenes and in 
the final tragic sacrifice, did her beautiful voice shake 
with a suffering so intense that it was real. 


52 


FOOTLIGHTS 


Randolph she saw several times a week in his ac¬ 
customed place in the first row. But his efforts to see 
her she ignored. A scene with him would be unbearable, 
leading as it must nowhere. So she left his notes un¬ 
answered, knowing he would eventually conclude that his 
passion the night of their last meeting had been un¬ 
welcome, that she was choosing the simplest means of 
telling him so. He wrote at first anxiously, then de- 
mandingly, and when she failed to answer—stopped. 
When the notes ceased to come she felt more miserably 
alone than ever in her life, reaching back into the past for 
their hours together as groping thoughts reach for 
memories of the dead. 

She grew thin as a rail and her pallor was no longer 
creamy. It was dead white, with unbecoming lines 
traced from nose to mouth. Seabury remarked the 
change and suggested that she needed a change of air. 

“You’ve been working too hard and you show it. 
When does your season close?” 

“Sometime in June.” 

“Why don’t you get Kane to let you off the end of this 
month?” 

“I don’t want to be let off. I’d like to play all 
summer.” 

“Good Lord, it would kill you!” 

“It will kill me if I don’t work.” 

“Look here!” He went over to her chair, looked at 
her closely. “What’s the matter?” 

He had dropped in to tea at her apartment. She was 
seated behind the copper samovar, white face emphasized 


FOOTLIGHTS 53 

against the dark hangings, fingers moving restlessly 
among the tea things. 

“Something’s wrong,” he persisted as she did not 
answer. “What is it?” 

“Oh, a million things,—a million little things that don’t 
count.” 

“Looks to me if it was one big thing that does.” 
He drew her out of the chair—toward the window. 
“Come on—’fess up to papa!” 

“Well, for one thing—” she bit her lip, woman-wise 
trying in her own soul to veer away from the big issue by 
concentrating on a lesser. “My mother’s blackmailing 
me.” 

“Your—what?” 

She looked up, met his stare of dismay. “The little 
old lady you see around here sometimes.” 

“I thought she was a maid. Look here—I don’t 
understand. You—why, Lizzie Parsons, you’ve been an 
orphan for years!” 

“I know I have. But I had to have some one—mother 
preferred—to protect me.” 

“I see—” A light dawned. 

“So I engaged her. She looked the part and seemed 
a gentle, pathetic soul—and now she’s blackmailing me.” 

He grinned in spite of the seriousness of it. “Is she 
likely ever to squeal?” 

“Not as long as I give her all the money she wants. 
But it’s getting on my nerves. She makes my life miser¬ 
able by threatening to take my story to the newspapers.” 

“Next time she does it, send for me and I’ll bully her 



54 


FOOTLIGHTS 


into keeping quiet.” He made a move toward the door. 
“Is she here? I’ll do it now.” 

“No—no!” She stopped him. “Let well enough 
alone.” 

He took her hand. “Poor kid, you are in a mess!” 

“I’ve committed suicide, Lou,” she said abruptly. 

He looked at her silently, then shook his head. “What 
else is bothering you?” 

“What—what makes you ask that?” 

“A blackmailing mama might make you look tired and 
worried but she wouldn’t put all that sorrow into your 
eyes. Why, you look like Isolde—by Jove, that’s it! 
Love stuff!” 

“How absurd!” She looked away. “Whom could I 
be in love with?” 

“Not with me, that’s a sure thing. Though, of course 
you know I’m in love with you.” 

“Lou—!” 

“Oh, don’t worry. I know I haven’t a chance. But I 
care enough to be darned upset by your condition. Now, 
come along, let papa fix things for you.” 

“They can’t be fixed, Lou, ever. When you’ve chosen 
to be two people in one, you’ve got to stand up and take 
the consequences if God ordains that two’s company and 
three’s a crowd.” She gave him a smile, whimsical but 
without mirth. “Have you ever heard that saying: ‘Je 
suis ce que je suis, mats je ne suis pas ce que je suisV ” 

Seabury’s brow wrinkled. “I sing French. I don’t 
speak it.” 

“It’s a play on verbs: T am what I am, but I am not 
what I follow,’ ” she translated. “Well, that’s me!” 


FOOTLIGHTS 


55 


He tried to persuade her to give him her confidence but 
she smiled and told him there was nothing further to 
confide. 

A few weeks later just before her season* closed, he 
asked what plans she had made for the summer. Kane 
was arranging to send her on tour with “The Temptress” 
before opening in New York in a play being written 
for her. She would have July and part of August to 
rest. 

“I shall stay in town/’ she told him, “and study.” 

He protested vehemently. 

“No use, Lou! I couldn’t bear being among 
people and this is the best place to hide away. Besides, 
there’s my mother to consider. I can’t risk having her 
run loose in New York without me.” 

“But you must rest! ” 

“I must keep going, with as much work as I can man¬ 
age.” 

He bent over her, his kind brown eyes troubled. 

“You’ll kill yourself.” 

“On the contrary, I wish that I weren’t so intensely 
alive.” Then she smiled and patted his shoulder. 
“Don’t worry about Lisa Parsinova. She’s in fine 
shape.” 

“But Lizzie Parsons?” he put in. 

“She doesn’t count.” 

“Seen Rand lately?” he asked casually as he got up to 
go* 

“A number of times.” She had seen him only too 
frequently from the far side of the footlights. “Have 
you?” 


56 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“No. He’s busy. Getting ready to go to Arizona. 
But of course you know about that.” 

“Y—yes. Has he told you when he leaves?” 

“Tuesday of next week. May be gone a year. Don’t 
know why.” 

She turned her back to the light so that her face was 
blurred and misty and he could not read its expression. 
“Do you—do you think he looks quite well?” she 
prompted, eager for some news, any news of him. 

“Well, it struck me he looked a bit seedy last time I 
saw him—not just up to the mark, that is. Probably 
spring fever. How does he impress you?” 

“I—I hadn’t noticed any change.” 

When he had gone, she picked up the calendar on her 
desk and stared at the day and date. Friday! By this 
time next week, a stretch of continent would rush between 
her and Hubert Randolph. She shrugged her shoulders 
with a short laugh. What mattered miles when worlds 
stretched between them now! 

She went into her bedroom, locked the door. Lizzie 
Parsons leaned close to her mirror, stared into it. The 
white face and black-rimmed eyes of Lisa Parsinova 
stared back. A frenzy seized her. She caught hold of 
the first object her hand touched—a hair brush—and 
flung it full force at the reflected face. The glass 
splintered. Then she stepped back in trembling terror. 
Good heavens! Was she actually becoming that 
Russian fiend? 

On Monday night her gaze wandered instinctively 
toward Hubert’s accustomed place in the orchestra. He 





FOOTLIGHTS 


57 


was not there. Of course she had expected that, but 
she would have liked just one more look at him. 
Women have a strange way of wanting that which tor¬ 
tures them. 

After the final curtain Kane appeared in her dressing- 
room and suggested that they take a drive up Riverside 
and a bite of supper somewhere along the road. He 
wanted to talk to her about the new play, about her route 
for the coming season and a date for her New York open¬ 
ing. His attitude had become thoroughly friendly and 
businesslike. He was too much the artist to allow fail¬ 
ure in a lesser game to interfere with success in a greater. 

It was nearing one when they drove back through the 
soft summer night. The air touched her face like velvet 
but brought no drowsiness to her eyes, no balm to the 
realization of blankness ahead—not of weeks or months, 
but of years. 

With the passing of those years it was inevitable that 
she become Parsinova—with nothing left of poor, defunct 
Lizzie Parsons but the recollection of a love that had 
touched her life like the moon on a summer sea. 

The Drive was still dotted with strolling couples obliv¬ 
ious of passers-by. Cars sped past them, wheels expertly 
manipulated by one hand. Mingled young laughter rang 
out like bells. 

Kane’s rich voice flowed on, dwelling now on this, now 
on that scene of the play. She listened absently, eyes 
straying in a way that was absurd toward the magic of 
a June night, the enviable good fortune of those who 
could become part of it. 


58 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“I shall give you even greater opportunities than you 
have had. I shall produce a piece of work that will be 
epoch-making,” he told her. 

She told him how pleased she was. 

When they arrived at her apartment she asked him 
not to trouble getting out of the car, and stood and 
watched it swing round the corner. Then slowly she 
turned and went indoors. 


CHAPTER V 


P ARSINOVA unlocked her door, stepped into the little 
foyer and after an instant’s pause to take off hat 
and dustcoat, crossed the hall to her living-room. Once 
more cretonne hung in the doorway and slips of it cov¬ 
ered the furniture. Summer had served as sufficient ex¬ 
cuse to convert the place to its former simplicity. The 
sight of cathedral chairs and gold cushions had for the 
past few weeks depressed her to the point of mania. 
More than once she wanted to tear them to bits. 

The dim light from the foyer sifted weirdly into the 
dark, playing here and there like ghost hands lifting the 
shadows. She felt her way toward the fireplace, dropped 
to the floor, her head touching the chair arm, and stared 
at the spot where in the flames she had visualized the 
scenes he painted. It was blank now, just a vague 
square full of darkness, but it gave her back his voice, 
the sense of his strength, the caress of his arms. It sent 
once more sifting upward the aroma of cloudy pipe smoke 
through which he had wanted to see her face. Her eyes 
closed. Almost she sensed him there in the magic of one 
of those long silences that needed no words. Almost she 
could feel his touch upon her hair, her longing made it 
so real. 

Tears came hot under her lids, the first she had shed 
since that night. They streamed shamelessly down her 
cheeks and onto the sheer clinging dress. All pose—and 
she had grown used to posing even to herself—slid from 

59 


60 


FOOTLIGHTS 


her. Her poise slipped with it. The great Parsinova 
became just a lonely, huddled heap of a girl. 

She lay so, whispering his name shamelessly into the 
darkness when suddenly it seemed that she was being 
lifted and drawn into the big chair. It was like embark¬ 
ing into some dreamland of her own making. She held 
her breath, choked with the fear that she might shatter 
it. The caress upon her hair, arms closing round her, lips 
seeking hers! It was not until she had the actual sense 
of a rough coat against her cheek that, galvanized with 
terror, she started up and backed toward the floor lamp 

that stood at one side of the fireplace. 

• 

The soft light went up. Hubert Randolph was sitting 
there! It was impossible of course! Slowly she went 
toward him, reached out a hand, touched his arm. 

He laughed. “Oh, I’m real enough!” 

She forgot her accent. At that moment she could not 
have assumed it even though the future, though life it¬ 
self, depended on it. “But how—how—” 

“I’ve been waiting for you since eleven-thirty,” he put 
in, apparently not noticing the difference. “I concluded 
I was entitled at least to a ‘good-by’ from the woman I 
love.” 

She gazed at him silently a moment and then because 
her heart and throat were full, she voiced a triviality. 
“How did you get in?” 

“Your little old woman! I bribed her. I’d had an 
idea I could go away without seeing you. Well, I 
couldn’t, that’s all.” 

Her nerves were quivering like live things. She moved 


FOOTLIGHTS 61 

toward the couch, dropped on it. “I—” she said at 
last haltingly—“I am not the woman you love.” 

He looked across at her. 

She went on without meeting his eyes. After the un¬ 
conscious revelation she had given him during those mo¬ 
ments when she thought herself alone, she could no more 
have stopped the confession that came now than she could 
have stopped her breath. 

“I am not any of the things you think me—not one 
of them. I am not Russian—not foreign at all. I was 
born in Vermont of American parents. Up to the time I 
met Kane, my struggle for existence was in cheap vaude¬ 
ville houses, not in Moscow. I’ve never had any 
lovers—” 

“Well,” came with a low chuckle, “no man could ob¬ 
ject to that.” 

She looked up. Her eyes met his, amazed. “You 
don’t understand. I am not Lisa Parsinova—there is 
no such person. I am Lizzie Parsons and I’ve im¬ 
posed on you just as I’m imposing on the American pub¬ 
lic.” 

“The American public asks chiefly to be charmed and 
interested. If you’re doing that for them, they don’t 
care whether you’re Yankee or Hindustani.” 

She continued to stare at him, in bewildered fashion 
striving to interpret his nonchalance. “You—you can’t 
possibly understand,” she breathed at last. “Aren’t 
you surprised?” 

“Not in the least. You see, I’ve been Kane’s backer 
for years. I was with him in the vaudeville house the 


62 


FOOTLIGHTS 


night he first saw you. As a matter of fact, I was the one 
who suggested to him that you’d be a winner on Broad¬ 
way. Of course the foreign stuff was his. Any number 
of times I’ve watched him work with you from an adjoin¬ 
ing room. You don’t know what pride I’ve felt in your 
success.” 

“Then why, all these months, have you let me believe 
you were being fooled?” 

“Well, I hadn’t exactly taken count of the fact that 
I was going to love you. And when the blow came I 
realized that if I’d been lucky enough to make you care 
anything for me, you couldn’t go on acting to me. You’d 
have to tell me—and I wanted you to, because you 
couldn’t help it. That night when I had you in my arms, 
I thought some sort of admission would come. When it 
didn’t and you ignored all my attempts to see you, I 
could only conclude I’d lost out.” 

“You didn’t guess—” 

“Not until to-night.” 

She still groped uncertainly, not able to fasten on any 
one fact. “It was Kane, then, who told you where I 
lived.” 

“No. Your little old woman here.” 

“My little old woman?” 

“She’s a canny soul. Must have found one of my 
notes that you brought home from the theater or some¬ 
thing like that, because she looked me up one day and 
offered to sell me some interesting information about you. 
I paid her not to sell it and threatened her with jail if 
she went to anybody else. Told her she was guilty of a 
criminal offense that could send her up for twenty years. 


FOOTLIGHTS 63 

I think I made it strong enough to shut her up for the 
rest of her days.” 

“She’s been collecting from me just the same straight 
along.” 

He flung back his head. “I said she was canny. Be¬ 
fore I go West I’ll have another talk with her.” 

“You—you’re going to-morrow?” 

“No, I’m waiting over. You close Saturday night. 
We’ll leave Sunday.” 

With the last words, he leaned forward. She took a 
quick step toward the wide chair, then stopped abruptly. 

“But what am I to do with Parsinova?” 

He pulled out his pipe, reflectively examined it. 

“Think of the novelty—I’ll have two wives in one.” 

Her lips tightened. 

“No, you won’t! I’m going to take that woman out 
on a lake this summer and capsize the boat—drown her! 
And the body will never be found. Then I’m going to 
let my hair go back to its own color! Which one of us 
is it,” she added suddenly, “that you love?” 

He laid his pipe on the chair arm. 

“The little girl who called to me in the dark. Now 
come back here, Lizzie Parsons, where you belong!” 

“I’ll always be jealous of that Russian devil!” she 
warned him. 













MADAME PEACOCK 


CHARACTER DRAMA 

The battle royal of all time is between character and cir¬ 
cumstance. The way we meet the experience that waits 
for us round the corner is the eternal Comedie Humaine. 
Success is the hole in the ground—the banana peel—the 
stumbling block that may trip us up. It is as uncertain as 
to-morrow. 








) 



% 



MADAME PEACOCK 


CHAPTER I 

O F course that was not her name. No one knew just 
how she had been christened—if at all. To a wor¬ 
shipful public she was known as Jane Goring, which, as 
names go, answered all purposes and was quite as simple 
as she was ornate. But “Peacock” was the title of the 
play in which she had made the season’s hit and a wave 
of fads in honor of it had typhooned over New York in 
consequence. 

There were perfumes with bottles far more valuable 
than~ their contents on which strutted the iridescent 
bird of beauty. There were soaps and powders and 
sachets sold in green satin boxes similarly decorated and 
similarly priced. Peacock feather fans swayed at dances 
and the opera despite the age-old hoodoo. Beaded bags 
were worked in the popular design. Dressmakers dic¬ 
tated the spreading train. Blues and greens in every con¬ 
ceivably odd shade were introduced as the new color. 
The peacock coiffeur, originated by Goring, was imitated 
by dowager and debutante, by movie star and chorus 
queen, by the girl behind the counter even unto the cash 
girl—hair drawn flat over the top of the head and puffed 
out stiffly at the ears, the whole being completed by a 
comb that jutted at right angles. In Goring’s mahogany 
swirl, framing as it did a face rather broad at the cheek¬ 
bones and tapering heart-shaped to the chin, an imper¬ 
tinent nose and sleepy green-gray eyes that lifted at the 
corners, the effect was startling. But the variegated 

67 


68 


FOOTLIGHTS 


types it crowned north, south and east of Broadway 
would scarcely have inspired an artist to his best work. 

At the moment we make our bow to Jane Goring 
—for Goring bowed to no one—she was on the top rung 
of the ladder of success. Her head had reached the 
clouds and was held accordingly. So that when she 
looked at you, she always looked down at you. Which 
made those whom she addressed feel infinitely small even 
when they were tall, always excepting representa¬ 
tives of the press. They found her always gracious, al¬ 
ways smiling with corners of eyes and lips lifted and a 
look of wonder at their great kindness to her. Each 
time she received them it was in some new and amazing 
costume in one of the shades she had made popular, 
with jangling jade or emeralds in her ears and green 
lights darting from the comb in her hair. She spoke at 
length of the arts and collected immense royalties from 
candy boxes, silk advertisements and cold creams bearing 
her name and endorsement. 

Somewhere in the dim and distant past her flaming head 
and Jap-like eyes had graced the chorus. She had lived 
in a hall bedroom; had been caught frying chops over 
an alcohol stove; had been lectured by the landlady; 
had found the milk frozen to her window sill on winter 
mornings; had known the exquisite thrill of being raised 
to a few lines of persiflage with the musical comedy’s 
comedian. In those days a young newspaper man, Bob 
McNaughton, had found her out, proclaimed her a genius, 
and married her—not because of her genius, however, 
but because he adored her. They had spent their honey- 


MADAME PEACOCK 


69 


moon one Sunday on the Palisades, and he had kissed her 
finger tips one by one and told her how he was going to 
make her. 

“There’s Jefferson who has our dramatic column—I’ll 
get him to give you a boost every now and then. He 
stands in with a bunch of critics. He’ll drop a word 
about you and they’re bound to take notice. You’ll see, 
darling, what I’m going to do for you!” 

And she had put her vivid head on his shoulder and 
gazed down at the shining river and murmured that she 
didn’t care whether he did anything for her or not. She 
loved him—she didn’t want anything in the world but 
him. 

The hall bedroom had given place to the third-story 
back, the frying chops to a French table d’hote that 
boasted a bottle of red ink with a sixty-cent dinner, and 
Jane Goring was happy in the possession of a broad 
shoulder to weep on when the latest step came hard or 
the director asked casually if her legs were made of 
leather. 

In the years that followed, the ardent young husband 
had made good his promises. He had systematically 
press-agented Goring with a sincerity and enthusiasm 
born of love. Untiringly he had worked to bring her 
first to managerial, then to public notice. And his efforts, 
added to natural talent and a bizarre personality, had 
hoisted her to the top rung heretofore mentioned. “Pea¬ 
cock” marked the fourth season of her success. 

But long before that Bob McNaughton had awakened 
one morning to find gray hairs threading his brown, and 


70 


FOOTLIGHTS 


himself still a reporter—by no means a star one. He 
had been so busy making her career that he had forgot¬ 
ten to make his own. 

It was about this time that his wife left him. Not ac¬ 
tually left him, of course, for at that particular moment 
Goring would not have stooped to anything so disturbing 
as divorce. Waves of popular favor had begun to roll 
smoothly up the beach of her ambition. But her tem¬ 
perament demanded a home all her own. So they main¬ 
tained separate apartments—had done so for several 
years—his a room and bath in a downtown bachelor ho¬ 
tel, hers a nine room and three-bath duplex in an uptown 
studio building. 

In the beginning they had seen each other occasionally. 
But each time they met, Bob seemed to have grown 
grayer. Whether this fact was a reminder that her own 
hair, left to itself, might show the same tendency, or 
whether it was just the look in his eyes—the same look 
they had worn that Sunday on the Palisades—seeing him 
began to tell on her nerves. 

More and more she denied herself to him until he 
became more of a stranger in her beautiful rooms than 
the flock of tame robins who pecked out of her hand at 
afternoon tea. 

As a matter of fact, few of Goring’s vast throng of 
admirers even guessed there was a husband in the offing. 
Women persistently married her off to her handsome 
leading man, and more than one young millionaire 
about town ecstatically visualized her presiding at his din¬ 
ner table. 

So far as Jane Goring was concerned, Bob McNaugh- 


MADAME PEACOCK 


71 


ton belonged to another life. Thus it was rather a shock 
to come home from the theater one night when “Peacock” 
was at the height of its run and find her husband waiting 
for her. It was fully five months since she had seen him; 
over a year since she had been at home to him after 
the theater. 

He was striding up and down her drawing-room, hands 
thrust deep into his pockets, head bent. But when one 
considers that her drawing-room consisted of three thrown 
into one, it was not surprising that at first she was not 
conscious of another’s presence. She came in, switched 
on the sidelights, dropped her furs and sank on the 
davenport, hand hovering toward the table back of her, 
when from the other end of the room, her name was 
spoken. 

She sat up, startled, and saw Bob coming into the range 
of bluish light from a Chinese temple lamp at the side 
of the piano. Jane Goring looked her amazement. He 
drew nearer, stopped abruptly and faced her. 

“My apologies,” he said with a slight, rather twisted 
smile, “for calling so late.” 

She dropped back, the look of amazement still lighting 
her long sleepy eyes. “You did rather—startle me.” 

For a moment neither spoke. Then he indicated the 
other corner of the deep-cushioned couch, “May I sit 
down?” 

“Certainly.” It was accompanied by a slight shrug. 

His hand dove into his vest pocket and brought out a 
silver cigarette case. He clicked it open, held it out to 
her. She may or may not have noticed that his move¬ 
ments were tense and jerky, that the case was held not 


72 


FOOTLIGHTS 


quite steadily. She gave a faint gesture of dissent, reach¬ 
ing once more to the table at her back, and opened a gold 
lacquer box. 

“I have a new special brand—imported for me from 
Egypt.” 

He took one of his own, pocketing the case, and she 
waited for some explanation of his visit. 

“You’re looking well,” he began after a moment with¬ 
out looking at her. 

“Feeling very fit,” she returned, and waited once more. 

He did not speak, just sat staring down at his rather 
tightly clenched hands. 

She did notice then that he was looking old—years 
older than when she had last seen him. Bob was forty- 
two,—to-night he looked fifty. Jane was,—well, not even 
“Who’s Who” knew exactly how old Jane Goring was— 
any woman who will tell her right age will tell anything! 

-—but she looked well under thirty. 

The silence seemed to demand something of her. 

“And you?” she queried politely. 

He wheeled round in his corner. “That’s just what 
I’ve come to see you about,” he brought out. “Matter 
of fact, I waited until the last minute—didn’t want to 
bother you with it.” 

“The last minute?” 

“Yes. I’m pulling up stakes—beating it for Colorado 
to-morrow.” 

At the back of Jane Goring’s brain, though even to 
herself she did not acknowledge it, flared a sudden flash 
of relief. Like a jagged streak of lightning across a sum¬ 
mer sky it was there—and gone. 


MADAME PEACOCK 


73 


“Where—in Colorado ?” 

“Denver.” 

“With what paper?” 

“None, for a time. It’s like this.” He paused, seemed 
to be searching for words, his hands clenched and un¬ 
clenched nervously. “I’ve been seeing Frothingham, the 
specialist, you know. Oh, it’s nothing—contraction in 
the chest now and then and bit of a cough in bad weather. 
Beastly uncomfortable, though. He tells me if I go now 
I can get rid of it in six months or so.” 

Goring gazed at the breadth of shoulder on which her 
head had snuggled so peacefully in the old days. Not 
that that phase of it occurred to her just then, but she 
stared at the big frame and could scarcely credit what he 
told her. 

“But how in the world did you get such a thing?” 

“It got me, my dear,—before I knew it. Fellow liv¬ 
ing alone’s apt to grow careless. Anyway, there it is, and 
it’s up to me to light out.” 

Silence again for a moment, then—“I’m sorry, old boy,” 
she murmured. 

“That’s good to know.” He slid nearer to her along 
the couch. Her face through the pungent smoke from 
the Egyptian cigarette was an indefinite white blur, vague 
as a dream, impossible to read. “I was hoping, in a 
way, that you would be. Makes it easier for me to put 
up the proposition I have in mind.” 

“Yes?” she questioned as he paused again. 

“But first I want to outline something of my plans once 
I knock this bug on the head.” 

“Yes?” 


74 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“The Graystone has made me an offer. I’ve been in¬ 
terested in the movie game for the past few years; been 
studying it from the inside. And recently Crosby Stone 
—he’s vice-president of the Graystone—asked me to go 
to the Coast and take charge of the editorial department 
at their Western studio. I told him that for the present 
I couldn’t consider it—health needed jogging up. He 
said the job would be there for me whenever I wanted 
it.” 

“Seems to me an excellent idea,” she observed. 

“Now what I wanted to ask you is this.” He 
fumbled for his case once more. Against the light from 
the table lamp, his features formed a sharp tense silhou¬ 
ette. He bent forward, struck a match. It flared up¬ 
ward, emphasized the lines that were almost ridges in his 
face. Suddenly he turned, and his next words came 
thick. “Janey, I want you to do this much. Will you— 
when you close—take a run out to Colorado and spend 
part of the summer with me?” 

The tapering white hand that held the cigarette to her 
lips dropped as if stricken. She straightened and 
her drowsy green eyes looked down on him from the im¬ 
mense height of the top rung. 

“My dear boy!” she ejaculated. 

“Of course,” he put in quickly, “I wouldn’t expect you 
to stay in Denver. Must be any number of mountain 
resorts we could go to—I’ll ask Frothingham.” 

“But, my dear boy, I couldn’t possibly. To begin 
with, I’m taking ‘Peacock’ on the road early in August, 
playing Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago—all the big cities. 





MADAME PEACOCK 


75 


Cleeburg wants to keep me out in it until February when 
we begin work on a new production. That leaves me only 
a few weeks’ vacation—” 

“Spend them with me. Janey—” He leaned over with 
a swift, impulsive movement, lifted her left hand, the little 
finger of which was completely covered by a big beetle- 
green scarab, and kissed the tips one by one. “Janey, 
there’s just you—no one else! These last years have 
been hell. I’ve missed you—I’ve wanted you! A few 
weeks—is that too much to ask?” 

She drew her hand away—gently enough. But a little 
shudder of disgust ran down her spine. “But I can’t, 
don’t you see?” she began conversationally. “Those few 
weeks I must have to myself. I need the rest.” 

“Can’t we take it together? Can’t we go up into the 
mountains—away from the muck of the world—and get 
to know each other all over again? Remember our 
honeymoon, dear, the afternoon by the river? What a 
happy pair of kids we were! Let’s have a taste of 
that, just a taste again.” 

A slight flicker of amusement—oh, very slight—raised 
the corners of her upslanted eyes. “Afraid we’ve passed 
the honeymoon age, dear boy.” 

“It’s your love I want, Janey,” came from him desper¬ 
ately. “Just to feel that you’ll come to me for a time 
when I need you.” 

She got up, crushed the spark from her cigarette, tossed 
it with a gesture of distaste into the tray and moved 
toward the piano. In her trailing green gown with its 
fanlike train—Goring never wore short skirts—and her 


76 


FOOTLIGHTS 


dangling scarab earrings, she looked very exotic, very 
tall and altogether unapproachable. She trailed the 
length of the room and stopped under the Chinese temple 
lamp. Its blue light shed an aura about her, giving her 
skin the moon-glow that Henner’s brush has made im¬ 
mortal. 

Her husband gazed after her. Mercifully she stopped 
with her back toward him, and he failed to get the ex¬ 
pression that pressed close her lips. His eyes had fol¬ 
lowed her with dog-like pleading. Without meeting them 
she knew—felt it. Neither could she escape the urge in 
his voice. In the old days, that deep tender note had 
thrilled her, made her yearn for him, given her the assur¬ 
ance that whatever happened, Bob would be there to 
make things right. To-night it merely annoyed her, ren¬ 
dered her position more difficult. Seeing Bob at all had 
become trying and the very thought of the thing he now 
suggested irritated her beyond measure. She had so 
completely done with him—finished! Taking advantage 
of this sudden illness was taking advantage of her. With 
all her being she resented it. 

She stood for a moment turned from him, fingering 
the blue and gold tassel that hung from a bit of Chinese 
embroidery flung across the piano. Finally she turned 
back, face as void of light or shade as the old idol en¬ 
shrined in a corner. 

“Suppose we have a snack of supper and talk things 
over,’ 7 she suggested. 

He was sitting bent almost double, elbows on knees, 
head in hands. A wave of contempt for his attitude of 
dejection swept over her. She was so palpitant with life, 





MADAME PEACOCK 77 

vibrating with the thrill—ever new, ever sweet—that the 
laurel wreath brings. 

Without waiting for a reply she rang. A tired-eyed 
maid appeared. Goring gave her directions and when the 
girl had gone out, proceeded to chat casually about affairs 
of the theater—a new firm of managers recently bobbed 
up on the horizon with a new play by a new author; the 
outlook for next season; the trend toward satirical 
comedy. 

Bob sat without moving, knuckles pressing white 
against his forehead, the veins on his hands standing out 
like blue welts. 

Presently he looked up. 

“I take it you are not coming out to me.” 

Goring in the depths of a chair some distance from 
him stirred uneasily. “My dear boy, I’ve told you. It’s 
not only impractical—it’s impossible.” 

“Of course! I was an ass to think you might.” 

“Can’t you see? I’m not my own mistress. I belong 
to my public. I’ve got to conserve my strength for them 
—and my work.” 

“Yes,—I see.” 

“If I consulted my own desires—but I haven’t the 
moral right. I must sacrifice what you want—what I 
want—to what my public expects of me.” 

He might have reminded her of the years he had given 
to creating that public for her. He might have dwelt at 
length on his Machiavellian boosting of a red-haired show 
girl through the columns of his own paper and gradually 
with insertions here and there in periodicals of the theater, 
until managers began to ask who this Jane Goring was. 


78 


FOOTLIGHTS 


He might have made mention of the evenings he had 
spent round the Lambs and the Friars adding to his list 
of acquaintances, as men can only at men’s clubs, those 
who would eventually be of service to her. 

He merely smiled with his lips, lighted another cigar¬ 
ette and tried to cover the fact that the flame flickered. 

“You must understand how I’m placed,” she persisted. 

“I understand.” 

His laconic reply, followed by flat silence, instead of 
alleviating, somehow increased her discomfort. 

After a moment he spoke. “Ever read ‘Frankenstein,’ 
Janey?” 

“No.” 

“Queer tale of a chap who tried to create a superman.” 

“Well?” Her brows contracted, puzzled. 

“Well—his superman rose up and destroyed him.” 

“I fail to see—” The frown deepened. 

“Oh, just a flight of fancy. Don’t mind me.” Again 
his hand struck a flickering match. 

“Ought you to smoke so much?” she asked, to fill in 
the gap. “I shouldn’t think it would be good for—for—” 

“My lungs? Oh, nothing wrong with them—actually. 
Dare say they’ll pull up O.K. once I pull out of this town. 
Y’know what Paul Bourget said about New York. Fel¬ 
low asked him how he liked our climate, and he answered, 
‘But my dear man,—you do not have climate. You have 
samples of weather!’” 

She laughed and the weight of the air lifted somewhat. 
The maid brought in a steaming chafing dish, set it on 
a nest of tables and drew out the smaller two, placing 
them in front of the couch. 


MADAME PEACOCK 


79 


Goring moved over, once more took the corner op¬ 
posite her husband. His eyes traveled the length of her. 

“You grow more beautiful every time I see you, Janey. 
Success is a first rate old alchemist, isn’t it?” 

She smiled down, her whole face softening. 

The maid laid an embroidered doily of finest linen 
on each of the two small tables and brought silver platters 
of creamed mushrooms with a faint aroma of sherry. 
From a dusty bottle marked Amontillado she poured into 
slim-necked glasses the same wine, glistening and amber. 

When she had finished serving them, she asked tenta¬ 
tively if madame wished her to wait up. 

Goring wondered why the question brought from Bob 
a look of curiosity, why he turned and watched her, wait¬ 
ing; why he smiled—with his eyes this time—when she 
told the girl to go to bed. 

She moved nearer—the tables were placed side by side 
■—and sipped the sherry. A few moments passed during 
which she noticed uncomfortably that he had not touched 
the dainty, tempting dish before him. 

“You’re not eating?” 

“Not particularly hungry.” He lifted his glass, twirl¬ 
ing it between thumb and forefinger, his gaze never leav¬ 
ing her. “I want to fill my eyes with you, Janey. May 
be a long time before I see you again.” 

Her eyes warmed to the tense adulation in his. After 
all, he did look beastly ill, and the least she could do 
would be to give him the memory of a little kindness to 
carry away. 

“And I want you to know, Bob, that I’ll be thinking 
of you, hoping and praying that before long you’ll be 


80 


FOOTLIGHTS 


quite fit again.” She leaned over, touching his hand 
lightly with hers. Instantly his closed over it—fever¬ 
ishly, as a man clings to hope when his ship of life has 
been broken into wreckage. 

“Will you, Janey?” 

“Of course.” 

“That will help—some.” He put down the glass and 
caught her other hand, drawing her nearer. “I’d like to 
feel there’s still a corner for me. No other fellow taking 
my place, I mean.” 

“How absurd! You know I haven’t time even to think 
of men.” 

“They have plenty of time to think of you.” Again 
that quizzical smile. “I’ve got that much over them, 
haven’t I? You’re my wife.” 

She smiled back and tried to draw away but he held 
her with the grip of hot iron. 

“That’s what I’ve got over them, Janey—all of them. 
You may belong to your public now but you’ve been 
mine. We’ve had our youth together, haven’t we?” 

“Yes.” 

“We’ve had the best of life together.” 

“Yes.” 

“Nobody can take that from me.” He spoke breath¬ 
lessly. 

Suddenly his arm went round her, crushed her to him 
and his lips were against hers. “My love!” he whis¬ 
pered. 

Jane Goring’s body went rigid. She drew herself erect 
and the warmth died out of her eyes as swiftly as a flame 
extinguished. Sharply her slim white hands thrust out 


MADAME PEACOCK 


81 


in defense. She pulled backward. Their gaze met— 
locked. In his was hurt question. In hers a flash of 
fury. He sat staring at her a moment and he did not 
look up. It was a look direct, straight, boring to the 
heart of her. 

And then he got to his feet. “I beg your pardon,” he 
began. “I—I thought—” He paused, jaws coming to¬ 
gether as though clamped. Without another look at her 
he walked the length of the room. 

At the door he turned. “Damn me for my humility!” 
he said. 


CHAPTER II 


E XCEEDING the most exalted expectations, “Pea¬ 
cock” ran two full seasons. It might even have 
packed houses during the hot spell, save that the star de¬ 
cided to give herself a rest, well-earned, and, of course 
without her, the theater had to remain dark. At the end 
of four w r eeks spent at a fashionable Adirondack hotel 
where she was feted like visiting royalty and her gowns 
created a sensation, she reopened and the continued suc¬ 
cess of the play warranted Cleeburg’s decision to give it 
another season on Broadway. 

During all that time Goring had not a word from 
her husband. Even of his Denver address she was un¬ 
aware. But the fact that he did not write failed to dis¬ 
turb her. It was a relief rather. The first few months 
of his absence she dreaded another plea from him. In 
case his health had grown no better, or—as was quite 
possible—had grown worse, further excuses would be 
difficult. As the weeks rolled into months and the months 
accumulated into a year and still not a line, the thought 
of him lapsed into merely perfunctory curiosity. He 
must be alive or she’d have been informed. Hence, if 
ever she needed to get in touch with him it would be 
easy enough to do so through his former paper or his 
clubs. Thus she blotted even the thought of him from 
her books. 

Another season of acclaim on the road and she was 
back in New York ready for rehearsals. Her new play, 

82 


MADAME PEACOCK 


83 


made to order for her by a prominent dramatist, was 
read by him in her apartment the day of her arrival. 

Cleeburg met her at the Grand Central, full of en¬ 
thusiasm, chewing the butt of a cigar while his hands out¬ 
lined the plot as an artist smudges in with charcoal the 
foundations of his picture. 

Goring’s manager had started life as a newsboy some¬ 
where east of Broadway and a few of the habits of child¬ 
hood had become the habits of a lifetime. His manners 
were not Chesterfieldian. Frequently he forgot to take 
off his hat when a lady entered the room. His cigar was 
removed from the right-hand corner of his mouth only to 
be shifted to the left. But more than one actress out 
of a job could borrow a hundred or two from him with 
no surer guarantee than her I.O.U. And those of the 
chorus whose eyes had not grown hard from seeing too 
much of the Rialto when lights are brightest, affection¬ 
ately called him “Papa.” 

Rudolph Cleeburg or ’Dolph as he was familiarly 
named—was short and stocky; heavily built, in fact, but 
with a lightness of foot that enabled him to prance about 
the stage while directing, and an Oriental imagination 
that carried him into any role he wanted to assume with¬ 
out making him appear ridiculous. One of the ablest 
directors in the country, in spite of English that some¬ 
times tobogganed, he always took his productions person¬ 
ally in hand once the first rough edges were smoothed 
down. With Goring, of course, he assumed charge from 
the beginning. She would have no one else. 

The manager’s admiration for his star had at the start 
been of the proverbial cat-and-queen variety. But as 


84 


FOOTLIGHTS 


their association stretched over the years, it was shorn of 
the awe in which he had first held her and once he had 
even reached the point of proposing. It was when she 
informed him that she and Bob had separated. 

“Divorce?” he had asked quickly. And with her 
shake of the head, “Well, if ever you do, there’s little 
’Dolph waiting to step into his shoes. Don’t forget that, 
Jane. It’s straight goods.” 

The proposal had vastly amused her. 

They drove up town through the fresh sweetness of a 
May morning. Cleeburg’s panama dropped to the floor 
of the car as he excitedly sketched the story in the air, 
one idea tumbling after the other as fast as words would 
come. His bald head shone as did his eyes. All his 
features were prominent—nose, eyes, teeth—but most 
prominent of all was his smile which seemed to light like 
an arc his round commonplace face. This he flashed de¬ 
lightedly as Goring listened with a calmness unbroken. 

“It’s sure fire, Jane! Sure fire! We got a bigger go 
than ‘Peacock’ and that’s going some.” 

Jane Goring said little until the apartment was reached. 
Then she shook hands with the author who was 
waiting for them, left the two men together while she 
changed from her traveling clothes, and an hour later 
glided in cool and revived in a peacock-blue house- 
gown whose sleeves floated outward like wings. Clee¬ 
burg’s watch was in his hand, but he pocketed it with¬ 
out a word as she entered, and settled back in his 
chair. 

The author opened his script and began to read. His 
voice filled the silent room, chorused occasionally by the 


MADAME PEACOCK 85 

gay trill of birds from the park across the way or city 
sounds from the street below. 

The manager’s smile broadened with satisfaction as he 
progressed. The cigar moved back and forth, propelled 
by emotion. But Goring listened without comment, eyes 
half closed, gazing down at the playwright’s head bowed 
over his manuscript. 

Presently a new sound broke upon the stillness. It 
was from neither bird nor branch, neither the clang of 
bells nor the rush of traffic. It was light and regular, 
and it came from within—the steady tapping of a slip¬ 
pered foot. Toward the end of Act II it became notice¬ 
able and Cleeburg looked round interrogatively. 

Tap—tap! Tap—tap! More swift, more impatient, 
—until the author’s voice proclaimed “Curtain.” 

Then Jane Goring spoke—and the tapping was ex¬ 
plained. “But, my dear Mr. Thorne, you don’t expect 
me to play the lead in that?” 

Cleeburg wheeled about in his chair. “What’s the 
matter with it?” 

“Why, there’s nothing for me—not a thing!” 

“Nothing for you?” 

“Nothing! Not a single opportunity in those first two 
acts.” 

Cleeburg sprang up. His cigar rotaried excitedly. 
“No opportunities? My God, Jane, what do you want? 
As the play stands, you’re the whole show!” 

“As the play stands, you might as well hand it to Har¬ 
rison Burke”—Burke was her leading man—“and let me 
retire,” came coolly. 

The playwright’s eyes began to smoulder. “I don’t get 



86 FOOTLIGHTS 

you, Miss Goring. This character has been absolutely 
built round you.” 

She turned on him, still cool, still aloof. 

“Then why is your man allowed to dominate every 
scene?” 

“He isn’t,” the author protested. “The sympathy is 
yours, even when I’ve been compelled to give him the long 
speeches.” 

“I don’t see it—not at all. You don’t even give me an 
opportunity to wear decent clothes.” 

“That comes in your last act,” Cleeburg burst out. 

“Well, I don’t want to wait until the last act.” 

“I can’t very well put a factory girl in satins,” the 
playwright observed. 

“Why make her a factory girl?” 

He threw up his hands and subsided. 

Cleeburg took to pacing the floor. “Look here, Jane,” 
he said finally, “let’s get a line on this. You’ve given ’em 
a fashion plate for three solid years. Show ’em you can 
do something else. Otherwise they’ll get sick and tired 
of you. This part’s great—just what you need. You 
act through the first two acts and in the last you splurge. 
What more do you want?” 

“I want it understood that I’m the star of the produc¬ 
tion!” 

“Well, it is. Nobody else has a chance. Good Lord, 
Burke’s speeches are just feeders! You’ve got—every¬ 
thing.” 

“I don’t see it.” 

The dramatist, who was sufficiently famous to be in- 


MADAME PEACOCK 87 

dependent of stars, rose. “Under the circumstances, 
there’s no need to read further.” 

“Hold on! Hold on!” Cleeburg clutched his arm. 
“Don’t take it like that, old man. Let’s go into the thing 
and see what can be done to please all parties.” 

They did go into it for three long hours, at the end of 
which Jane Goring insisted that she must have luncheon. 
She was as unruffled as when she had entered—and as 
firm. Cleeburg was mopping his brow. Through his 
glasses the playwright’s eyes were blazing. It was then 
two forty-five. By that hour they had compromised to 
the extent of cutting some of the hero’s long speeches 
and giving her a chance to change her costume in the 
last act. 

At luncheon Cleeburg consumed little more than whis¬ 
key and soda, and wondered why he got no cooler. 
Likewise he swore at the twittering of the birds and the 
distant clang of street cars. 

When Jane Goring had finished the last morsel of her 
chicken salad and leisurely emptied her cup of Chinese 
tea, they adjourned once more to the drawing-room and 
the discussion was resumed. 

A lantern of golden fire was hanging in the Western 
sky by the time the play had been revamped to the star’s 
satisfaction. More than once its author took hat in hand 
and made for the door. But Cleeburg’s persuasive 
clutch and the whisper that an additional advance would 
be paid for his trouble detained him. And finally an 
agreement was reached. 

Her objection to the drama as it stood, however, 


88 


FOOTLIGHTS 


necessitated a postponement of rehearsals and it was late 
July before the company assembled on the stage of a 
playhouse just off Broadway. It annoyed Goring to 
forego her usual few weeks of rest but since she wished 
to have a New York opening in October, there was noth¬ 
ing else to be done. 

The day the company was called was dank and humid, 
a breathless day thick with summer dust, ominous with 
thunderclouds. 

At ten Goring emerged from a cold bath, was dressed by 
her maid’s moist fingers, and at eleven crossed the soggy 
pavement from her car to the stage entrance. The drive 
downtown had been stifling. It dizzied her. To enter 
the dark passageway and look out into the space of audi¬ 
torium, linen-covered, was a relief. 

What is there about an empty theater that fascinates? 
The bare boards of the stage, the heaps of scenery piled 
against bare brick walls, the bare table and chairs ranged 
to form a semicircle within which the actors move back 
and forth, the single electric light, bare of shade, jutting 
up in the center like a giant eye in the cool darkness— 
surely there is no illusion about them, no suggestion of 
the world of make-believe into which they evolve. Yet 
the very odor of the place redolent of grease-paint— 
those who love it sniff it as a thoroughbred sniffs tan- 
bark. 

Manager, actors, author—they are about to conjure 
from those bare boards all the elements of life. Con¬ 
flict, laughter, tears, love, hate, happiness—death! 
Theirs to build, theirs to take the written page and make 
of it a tingling human thing. Theirs to people empty 


MADAME PEACOCK 


89 


chairs. Theirs to clothe with flesh and blood a skeleton. 
A wave of the wand and into emptiness springs a home 
with soft rugs and rich-colored hangings, deep divans, 
the ring of voices, the flooding of moonlight or warm 
glow of the sun. And best of all, out in that empty 
auditorium when the lights go up will throng a crowd 
whose hearts will be theirs to thrill, to wring, to charm. 
Theirs the blessed privilege, the joy of creation. That’s 
why they love it in spite of the ache of disappointment, 
the discouragement of failure. That’s why they cling to 
it. 

Those assembled on the stage that throttling day of 
July had risen tired from their beds, dragged wearily in 
from the street, noticed that the management had electric 
fans going and laughed at the idea of getting any re¬ 
lief from them. Yet the instant Goring appeared, fol¬ 
lowed a few minutes later by Cleeburg, a light sprang into 
their eyes, the spontaneous light of anticipation, and they 
promptly forgot the weather. The play had been read 
to them the day before and their parts assigned, so that 
they were ready to plunge into work. 

Goring shook hands with her leading man and nodded 
to the rest, all of whom were known to her—she had 
practically the same support from year to year—except 
a slight girl whose face was so thin that her eyes looked 
abnormally big and hungry. It made their expression 
almost frightened. 

The company ran quickly through the first act, parts in 
hand, while Cleeburg sat under an electric fan and lis¬ 
tened. Then, after a few words with the author who 
was hunched in a seat somewdiere in the ghostlike audi- 


90 


FOOTLIGHTS 


torium, he ripped off pongee coat, his collar and neck¬ 
tie, and real work began. 

Goring did little but read at the first rehearsals. She 
liked to conserve her energy for the long sessions Cleeburg 
put her through during the last weeks. 

When they left the theater at five everybody looked 
wilted but the star. The hour for lunch had been con¬ 
sumed largely with liquid refreshment and most of them 
again made for soda fountains. 

Goring dined with her manager on the Astor Roof. 
The storm, threatening all day, had not yet broken and 
a black hood of clouds bore down on the city like the 
shadow of death. Cleeburg, full of plans, ordered a near¬ 
champagne cup and substantial dinner and appeared not 
to notice the depression above and around them. But 
Goring it affected unpleasantly. She felt irritable, an¬ 
noyed by the fact that he could eat a heavy dinner 
on such a night, prone to find fault with the service, 
rubbed the wrong way by the strum of the summer or¬ 
chestra. 

“Did you notice how much older Burke looks?” 

“Looks good to me,” Cleeburg lifted a cup of steam¬ 
ing bullion while she played with a jellied one before 
her. 

“He’s losing his figure, I think.” 

“We ain’t any of us chickens, Jane.” 

She pushed the cup away. 

“Not that you ain’t a pippin,” he added hastily. 
“You’ve got the lines—you’ll always have ’em.” 

“Don’t talk as if I were a hundred.” Her voice was 
so sharp that it cut. 


MADAME PEACOCK 91 

“Good Lord, no! Not one on Broadway to-day can 
touch you.” 

She softened a bit. “Who’s the new girl?” 

“Who?” 

“The one who plays my sister.” 

“Oh, that one! Forget her name. Lewis has it.” 

“Where did you get her?” 

“She’s been hanging round the office, Lewis says, and 
couple of weeks ago she held me up on my way out. 
Toor little thing looked as if she needed a job so I gave 
her that sister bit. Hair’s something the color of yours 
—that decided me.” 

“She has a funny hysterical catch in her voice. Did 
you notice it?” 

“Probably she’s hungry. Looks it—poor kid! Must 
have Lewis slip her an advance on her salary.” 

With gusto he cut into the filet mignon and helped 
himself to some new peas. The sight of the red blood 
oozing from the meat made Goring feel ill. She turned 
her attention to the halibut parisienne the waiter placed 
before her. But even the slices of tomato and crisp gar¬ 
nishing of lettuce could not tempt her appetite. 

“I can’t see why you gave her the part—she’s so 
homely.” 

“That needn’t hurt you any.” 

“But she has a scene with me, even though it is only 
a bit.” 

“Maybe when she gets a square meal in her she won’t 
look so much like a ghost.” 

He lit a cigar, rolling it between his lips with the joy 
of an epicure. 


92 


FOOTLIGHTS 


Goring cooled her hot throat with an ice, frowning 
at his complacent finality. It increased her own irrita¬ 
tion, made her want to grip him by the shoulders and 
shake him. 

The girl was homely. Why did he argue about it? 

A zigzag of lightning cut through the sky. With a 
crash it tore open and the deluge descended like the 
wrath of God sent to cleanse a heathen city. Crash after 
crash, fire upon fire, barrages of rain hurled against the 
buildings, shaking their very walls. 

Goring shivered. In spite of the stewing heat a chill 
went through her. 

“Let’s get out of this,” she said. 

“Better wait till it’s over.” 

“I want to go home now.” 

Cleeburg signed the check. 

Like the lightning his car zigzagged through the storm. 
Water sprang from the streets against the windshield. 
The noise about them was deafening. Goring clung 
to the window strap at her side. For some unknown 
reason her nerves were keyed to the nth degree. She 
felt choked, as if shrieking alone would clear her throat. 
The first day of work and this beastly weather, she told 
herself, were responsible. 

Throughout the long night the storm raged. And tos¬ 
sing between soft linen sheets she did not close her eyes. 


CHAPTER III 


T HEY opened in Washington the end of August. 

Cleeburg tried to get Atlantic City but the theater 
had been booked weeks before his bid for it. Hence, in 
spite of the star’s popularity, they did not play to 
capacity. The season in the Capital was at low ebb. 
Most of the homes were closed and the usual Goring 
audiences were out of the city. Which after all was 
an advantage, for the play was still very rough. 

All things considered, both Goring and her manager 
were rather pleased than otherwise. The four weeks of 
rehearsal had been torrid, record-breaking heat rising 
from the pavements, the city consumed by fever. The 
effect upon the company had been in ratio thereto. They 
were limp by the date of opening, unequal to their best 
in spite of the utmost effort. 

And Goring’s role was difficult. She did not like it as 
well as “Peacock.” There was more drama, more op¬ 
portunity for emotional acting, but less for the display 
of gowns and the bizarre beauty that had made both 
men and women flock to the other play. However, as 
Cleeburg had said, she couldn’t afford to stamp herself 
a one-part actress. And there was no denying the inter¬ 
est of the story. 

As never before, Cleeburg had put her through her 
paces. At the theater after the company had dispersed, 
at her apartment in the evenings, he had gone over her 
part again and again coaching her scene by scene, speech 

93 


94 


FOOTLIGHTS 


by speech, until the rest, knowing nothing of those extra 
sessions, judged her a miracle at quick study. 

“Unbend, Jane!” he would say, prancing up and down 
her long drawing-room. “Come off your perch! You 
love him, Jane! You love him! D’you know what that 
means? You’d die for him. He ain’t your kind and 
3 T ou’d go through hell to get to him. Ever felt that way? 
Well, think about it—concentrate on it—and you’ll get 
it over.” 

Vaguely, like a curtain lifted on another life, memory 
drifted before her eyes the vision of an afternoon on 
the Palisades when a vivid-haired girl clung to a brown¬ 
haired boy, whispering over and over that she loved him 
—didn’t want anything ever in the whole wide world but 
him. 

For purposes of the drama she concentrated on it. 

Quite like the actress she was, she flung herself into 
the passion of those first months as if she had lived them 
yesterday. Fortunately for her the Goring of to-day, the 
actress, was a shell into which emotion could be poured 
as one pours burning fluid into an empty vessel. 

Little ’Dolph, with cigar twirling, eyes popping, per¬ 
spiration dripping from his forehead, and a silk handker¬ 
chief tied round his short neck, kept her keyed to the 
highest pitch—no let-down, no time to think of self or 
the weather or rest; no time for anything but the part 
in hand. Though he would not have known whence the 
quotation sprang, with him “The play’s the thing” was 
a litany. 

Critics in the Capital and in Baltimore were almost 
unanimous in the opinion that it was a vital thing, sure 


MADAME PEACOCK 


95 


of ultimate success when placed on view for the thumbs- 
up, thumbs-down decision of that capricious goddess— 
Broadway. 

As a rule Goring and her leading man were the only 
two mentioned in the reviews, but this time almost every 
member of the company came in for a quota of praise. 
The old mother, the character man, the juvenile come¬ 
dian, even the homely little sister with her wide hungry 
eyes and the queer catch in her voice, each had a word 
or two. 

Gloria Cromwell was the girl’s name. It was quite 
as ornate as she was plain. Goring laughed the first 
time she heard it. 

“Sounds as though she found it in a dime novel,” she 
told Cleeburg. “Why don’t you make her change it?” 

“Says it’s her own. Anyhow, it don’t matter.” 

“No—I dare say it doesn’t. She’s entitled to some¬ 
thing to make her conspicuous.” 

Often she noticed the girl at rehearsal sitting in the 
theater after her bit was done, leaning forward, chin in 
her cupped hands, mop of reddish hair falling over eyes 
that devoured every move the star made. Once they 
met at the stage entrance on their way out. 

“Why don’t you go home earlier?” Goring asked. 
“I’m sure Mr. Cleeburg will excuse you when you’re 
through.” 

“I’d rather stay,” the girl answered in her peculiar 
breathless tone. “I can learn so much from you, Miss 
Goring. Besides,” she paused, hesitated, “I—live in a 
furnished room. It isn’t much to go home to.” 

“Have you been in New York long?” Goring put 



96 


FOOTLIGHTS 


the question as they moved toward the street side by 
side. 

“A year and a half—that is, this time. I used to 
come whenever I could scrape together the fare while I 
was doing stock in the West. But there never seemed 
to be an opening for me. Then I decided I’d best just 
come and wait around or I’d never get a chance. And 
I waited, all right.” 

Another pause while the wide wistful eyes filled with 
the same look of fright they had worn that first day at 
the theater—only this time it was the fright of memory. 

“Mr. Cleeburg has been wonderful to me. I’ll never 
be able to thank him enough.” 

They had reached the curb. Goring smiled. “I shall 
tell him that,” she said, and with a nod stepped into her 
car and drove off. 

In Washington she noticed that Miss Cromwell was 
looking better, though the eyes were as hungry as ever 
and the figure as slight. Undoubtedly Cleeburg was 
right. What she had needed was a few square meals. 
Her strength seemed to increase as work increased and in 
their scene together Goring remarked a give and take 
that made her own work mount to greater intensity. It 
was a short scene in which the younger sister who had 
hovered like a silent brooding shadow in the background 
pleaded with the older not to break away from her own 
class, not to try to go into a world she did not under¬ 
stand—and was met by the defiance of one molded to 
make a place for herself in any world. The scene went 
so well, in fact, that the author, at Cleeburg’s request, 
lengthened it. At the end when Goring held out her 



MADAME PEACOCK 


97 


arms and folded the weeping girl in them, a gratifying 
sniffle and the flutter of white went through the house. 
Which is the most either star or manager can ask. 

The company rehearsed the greater part of the night 
preceding the New York premiere, though Goring left 
the theater early to allow herself plenty of time for rest 
and the customary massage. She liked to relax 
thoroughly before the strenuous demands on the nerves 
which an opening always made. In her sea-blue silk 
draped bed she would lie for hours while the magic hands 
of the Swedish woman who attended her each day sent 
tingling through her veins an injection of new life. And 
finally a delicious drowsiness would creep over her like 
a thin veil drawn between her and the turmoil of the out¬ 
side world. She would find herself presently floating on 
the waters of Lethe, arms outstretched, a smile upon 
her lips, a gentle undulation as of waves rising and fall¬ 
ing beneath her. Small wonder that when she drifted 
back to reality some hours later she felt rejuvenated, 
with a calm and control equal to any emergency. 

She reached the theater a little after seven. On the 
way in she met Miss Cromwell. The girl’s eyes were 
burning. Their hungry look had gone completely and in 
its place had come a glow like a great light from within. 

“Oh, Miss Goring,” she breathed in passing, “I’m so 
thrilled. I’ve lived and lived for this—New York! 
And now it’s come! It’s actually come!” 

Goring nodded, voiced a perfunctory ; ‘Good luck,” 
and wondered in her soul what it would be like to feel 
once more that closing of the throat, that turmoil of 
beating heart, that utter abandon of joy in opportunity 


98 


FOOTLIGHTS 


realized. It thrust her back to the day when she had 
signed her first contract with Cleeburg. She and Bob 
had sat facing each other a long space without a word, 
his two hands gripping hers until they ached. And then— 

“Fm so glad, little girl—so damn glad!” had come 
from him huskily. 

Then his hands had loosed and swept round her and 
he had held her close and she had cried into the lapel 
of his blue serge coat, tears of sheer happiness. 

Cleeburg came to her dressing-room shortly before the 
rise of the curtain to tell her the house was packed. They 
were standing three rows deep—he was sure of a knock¬ 
out. He brought her a pile of telegrams from members 
of the profession and friends in the social world. She 
read them leisurely. It was her first opening on which 
there was not a long one from her husband. Not that 
she really missed it, but the lack gave her a curious feel¬ 
ing of wonder as to what had become of him. 

Her maid gave her hair a final pat and she stepped 
back to survey. It was an odd Jane Goring who gazed 
critically out of the mirror. No jangling jade, no spread¬ 
ing tail, no sensuous color of plumage. Just a blue 
serge dress of last year’s cut, a little shabby, open 
at the throat. It had been selected by the author, not 
without some protest from the star. She had wanted 
at least to go to a good tailor, but he had dragged her 
into a department store and made her buy one from stock 
at twenty-nine forty-nine. She had to admit that the ef¬ 
fect, while not beautiful, was absolutely in character. 
Her shoes she had insisted'; upon getting at a Fifth Avenue 
boot shop. Feet are more conspicuous on the stage than 



MADAME PEACOCK 


99 


anywhere else in life and she must be well shod to do 
herself justice. Her hair, too, was groomed. The Gor¬ 
ing coiffeur was abandoned until the last act but the 
faint wave necessary to it could not have passed un¬ 
noticed in the coils clustered about the factory girl’s ears. 

She went out, followed by her maid, and waited in 
the wings for her cue. Then came the inevitable tighten¬ 
ing of the heart cords, the tense straining of muscles to 
achieve the best, the twinge of fear, all the tearing thrill 
of embarkation on a new venture. It lasted only an 
instant, however, an instant that ended in her entrance, 
followed by a crashing burst of applause. She bowed 
again and again, and the sweetness of it flowed like 
wine in her blood. The play halted, action suspended 
in mid-air, while the actress took the tribute she had 
known would greet her. 

After which the audience settled back to be entertained. 
From the beginning interest was evident, the hero¬ 
ine’s fight to make her own life apart from the prej¬ 
udice which is as rampant in the lower as in the upper 
classes holding them. The struggle of evolution is the 
most human, most vital problem in the world. 

All through the first act the conflict endured, the 
girl’s discontent striking like flint on steel until the final 
scene when the little sister, matted hair falling over 
her eyes, dropped on her knees, crying: “All I know 
is—you’re goin’. You’re leavin’ me! An’ you can’t 
—you mustn’t! You’re gonna get hurt with them peo¬ 
ple you don’t know. They’re gonna step on you an’ 
make fun of you an’ beat you down until you ain’t got 
no fight left. You don’t belong there—you don’t be- 


100 FOOTLIGHTS 

long! Stay here with me! I’m your sister, your own 
blood—an’ I love you, I love you! Nobody couldn’t 
love you no more’n I do!” 

Gloria Cromwell’s slight figure shook with the words, 
her eyes burned into Goring’s. That queer hysterical 
note lifted her voice into a throb that was heartrending, 
and as the star drew her close she seemed to crumple 
like a broken flower. 

The applause that met the curtain’s descent was in¬ 
terspersed with the same gratifying sniffle they had en¬ 
countered all along the route. A number of times it 
swung upward, members of the company taking it accord¬ 
ing to a schedule posted backstage. 

CURTAIN—ACT I 


First Curtain .Tableau. 

Second ” . Miss Goring and company 

Third ” . Miss Goring and principals 

Fourth ” . Miss Goring and principals 

Fifth ” . Miss Goring and Mr. Burke 

Sixth ” . Miss Goring 


The manner and order of taking the curtains had 
been carefully rehearsed the night before, but as it rose 
the fifth time with the star and leading man alone on 
the stage, an incident unanticipated occurred. Someone 
in the gallery shouted “Cromwell!” And the applause 
seemed to swell in answer. 

Goring at first paid no heed. The curtain fell—rose 
again and again. The call was repeated insistently. 
Goring went graciously to the wings and drew the girl 
onto the stage. She came, trembling so that she could 









MADAME PEACOCK 


101 


scarcely walk, eyes wide and terrified but shining some¬ 
how behind it all. She made an awkward bow, clinging 
like a child to Goring’s hand. 

When several curtains had been taken alone and prep¬ 
arations were finally under way for Act II, Jane Gor¬ 
ing picked her way past property men and scene shift¬ 
ers toward the dressing-room with a five-pointed star 
painted on the door—to an actress the gate of heaven. 
Miss Cromwell was waiting there. 

“Oh, Miss Goring,” she breathed, “that was so—so 
sweet of you!” 

Jane Goring looked down at her. “I take it you 
have friends in the gallery?” she said. 

“No, I have no friends in New York.” 

Goring continued to gaze down and her look was not 
altogether pleasant. But the girl did not see it. With 
an impulsive gesture, half apologetic, half worshipful, 
she lifted the star’s hand to her lips. 

“God bless you!” she murmured with that queer catch 
in her voice. 



CHAPTER IV 


T 5.00 a. m. ’Dolph Cleeburg was seated in the 



I\ living-room-library den of his apartment completely 
surrounded by early editions and the butts of cigars. 
One of the latter circled joyously in his mouth as he 
and the author read over the various expressions of ap¬ 


proval. 


“Here’s a fellow says Jane’s hair was too Fifth Ave¬ 
nue in the first act. By godfrey, ain’t that just like ’em? 
Can’t find fault with anything else, so have to pick on 
her hair.” 

“I told her to let it go,” the playwright remarked. 

“Well, that’s Jane. She’s got to look right or she 
can’t act. And, by gad, I’ve seen lots of Third Avenue 
girls got up like Fifth. Ain’t any law against it, is 
there?” He let the sheet rustle to the floor and picked 
up another. His collar and tie were open, his coat 
was off, his eyes held a blaze of excitement. A 
whiskey and soda stood on the tabouret beside him, 
untouched. 

“Listen to this, Ted!” He plunged into a eulogy that 
made his eyes snap and the cigar roll with a velocity 
impossible to estimate. “By godfrey,” came at the finish, 
“ain’t one of ’em don’t give some notice to that Cromwell 
kid”—and went on reading—“ ‘Managers—keep your 
eye on Miss Gloria Cromwell.’ ” Then he gave a long 
chuckle. “And to think I engaged her because she looked 
starved!” 


102 


MADAME PEACOCK 


103 


“She has something that gets you.” The author 
paused meditatively. “Wonder if it’s her voice?” 

“Nope,” came crisply from Cleeburg. “It’s her heart. 
Probably suffered like hell and that’s what puts her 
over.” 

In Jane Goring’s boudoir some five hours later, the 
actress sat propped up, also like an isle in a sea of news¬ 
papers. She had read them in the small hours as had 
her manager. Only differently. One of the society 
satellites who circle round a popular star even as the 
moon circles round the earth and just as inconstantly, 
now silvering her sky, now leaving it black, had at the 
play’s finish carried her off to a supper party and dance. 
In the midst of gayeties a flunky had been dispatched for 
the morning papers and, in a flurry of excitement 
like the froth of champagne, the notices had been con¬ 
sumed, gushed over, forgotten. 

Not so by Goring, of course. Alone in the white light 
of a new day, she reread them slowly, digesting each 
word. One watching her would have found in her eyes 
no glow of satisfaction, no thrill that once more she had 
scored. Rather was there the ghost of a frown on her 
brow. A frown somewhat difficult to interpret. 

At eleven Cleeburg had her on the phone. He had 
been ringing the apartment at regular intervals since 
eight but her maid had refused to disturb her. His 
voice ran the gamut of explosive enthusiasm. 

“Great, Jane, great! We’ve got ’em again! We’ve 
got ’em! Didn’t I tell you this one had it all over Tea- 
cock’?” 

He wanted to come up and lunch with her but she 


104 


FOOTLIGHTS 


told him she was tired, would see him later at the theater. 

The greater part of the day she spent resting, going 
over her notices and dictating letters to her secretary. 
Toward five she dressed and sent for her car. It was 
a crisp, clear blue October day. A run in the park or 
up Riverside—there were a number of things she had 
to think about—would fill in time until dinner. 

A restlessness unusual and unexplained made her pace 
the floor while she waited. So unusual was it, in fact, 
that it caused a vague wonder. By all previous por¬ 
tents she should have been exalted, lifted to the zenith 
of content through the knowledge that the star of her 
success still sailed high in the heavens. She was not. 
She felt nervous, distressed, with a weight on her chest 
that even the buoyant breezes from the river could not 
dissipate. 

Rolling up Riverside Drive with the ease of floating 
in ether, she had the sense of a great hand clutching 
her. The sensation was the same as that which she had 
experienced the first day of rehearsal—only intensified. 
It made breathing difficult, annoyed her to the point of 
exasperation. 

She ate no dinner, just swallowed a mouthful of tea 
and drove downtown. Little ’Dolph came to her dress¬ 
ing-room a few minutes later. He was jubilant. They 
were sold out weeks ahead. The play had hit the jaded 
metropolis in the eye—to quote him, with variations. It 
was good for another three seasons’ run. He rambled on 
at random, eyes popping, infectious smile lighting his 
round face like the smile of the sun at high noon. Pres¬ 
ently he stopped, shifted his cigar and stared at her. 


MADAME PEACOCK 


105 


“What’s the matter with you, Jane?” 

She looked down questioningly. 

“Ain’t said a word,” he continued. “What’s got you?” 

“Nothing. I’m tired, I dare say.” 

“Sure! Morning-after stuff! Don’t let down, though. 
We don’t want ’em saying second night’s off—the way 
it always is.” 

“You don’t have to tell me that.” Indignation was in 
her voice. 

“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” he apologized quickly. 
“And, Jane—” 

“Yes?” 

“Might let your hair go a bit in that first act—what?” 

Her eyes were like two rapier thrusts. He made for 
the door. “They’ll accept my hair just as it is,” was hei 
verdict. 

Their little chat did not tend to lift in any degree the 
mood that held her. She gave up trying to shake it off. 

Fortunately it had no perceptible effect on her work. 
She was too clever for that. Many years on the stage 
had trained her to the difficult task of obliterating per¬ 
sonal worries the instant the glow of the footlights would 
have revealed them to public gaze. In fact, she had al¬ 
most succeeded in stamping them from consciousness 
when Gloria Cromwell made her entrance. At that mo¬ 
ment there came a sudden burst of applause. Miss 
Cromwell tried to go on with her lines. They could not 
be heard. It was unprecedented, staggering. A girl, un¬ 
known, unheralded, was holding up the play! Of course, 
action had been suspended an instant when Goring came 
on, but this ,—this was unheard of. 



106 


FOOTLIGHTS 


Faintness seized the star, blinded her,—then fury. She 
knew now the nature of the weight that had stifled her 
all day. In a way, she had known it from the beginning. 
It was this girl! The lengthening of the part on tour, 
last night’s acclaim, her notices this morning, all had 
formed a cumulative irritant that now expressed itself 
in a surge of throttling hatred. 

She jumped in on the girl’s lines, killing almost every 
speech. She changed her own so that cues would be 
missed. No move, no turn that would make the little 
sister’s performance fall flat was allowed to pass. Even 
the final speech, ending with the beautiful tableau 
that last night had brought down the house, was cut 
short. Like a red tongue of flame her rage swept 
over its object consuming every opportunity the part 
gave. 

Still she did not kill the applause that greeted the 
curtain. 

Storming to her dressing-room came Cleeburg. 

“What’s the matter? You cut the act a minute and 
a half!” 

“I was ill,” she told him. And barred the door, strip¬ 
ping off her dress while the maid prepared a dose of aro¬ 
matics and bathed her head with eau de cologne. 

Since Gloria Cromwell appeared only in the first act, 
dying for exigencies of plot off-stage—the remainder of 
the performance went as usual. 

But that night, as once before, Goring tossed between 
sheets of finest linen and did not close her eyes. 

In the morning she sent for Cleeburg. 

He came, solicitous for her health, relieved by the fact 


MADAME PEACOCK 


107 


that her aberration of the night before had not in any 
way affected the play’s reception. 

She met him, cool and smiling and looking very beauti¬ 
ful in a purple mandarin suit, the skirt of which was 
weighted with wicked Chinese embroidery. Her taper¬ 
ing white hands were ringless and low-heeled Chinese 
slippers made her look less tall. Greeting him, her hand 
clung to his. 

She led the way into the drawing-room. 

“ ’Dolph,” she began, and for the first time a rather 
plaintive note crept into her voice. “ ’Dolph, I’m un¬ 
happy.” 

In the act of lighting the omnipresent cigar, he looked 
up, astonished. “Why—what’s wrong?” 

“I’m unhappy—and for a reason you may not quite 
understand. But you can help make things right. You 
can make them all right, if you will.” 

“Sure, Jane, you know me! Anything I can do—” 

“It has to do with the play.” 

“Fire ahead!” He resumed the operation of lighting. 

“ ’Dolph, that Cromwell girl, I simply can’t work with 
her.” 

Again the process of lighting was arrested. “Can’t 
work with her? Good God!” 

She went to him, struck a match and, bending over, 
held it to the weed. He laughed comfortably, settled 
back—patted her hand. 

“Sort of took the wind out of my sails, that did. Guess 
I didn’t get you straight, eh?” 

She sat down in a chair close to his, her back to the 
light. 




108 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“Please do get me right. I’ve nothing against her 
work, if you like it. It’s her personality that irritates 
me. There’s something—something snaky about her. 
She makes me nervous, makes me go off in my lines. 
You know, I told you in the beginning I didn’t like her.” 

“You said she was too homely.” 

“Well, she is.” 

“Not any more. Why, she’s got a face like—like 
Fiske. One of those faces you don’t get at first, but with 
so much behind it that you come to like it better than the 
kind that’s just easy to look at.” 

“I’ve never been able to like her, ’Dolph. I’ve tried 
to because you seemed to, and you know how absolutely 
I depend on your judgment. But I can’t, that’s all.” 
She looked away and the suggestion of a sob sounded in 
the words. 

Cleeburg’s cigar revolved silently for a few moments, 
then he leaned forward. “What are we going to do 
about it?” 

She turned to him, rested her white tapering hand 
pleadingly on his arm. “Get rid of her, ’Dolph.” 

“Get rid of her? Chuck her—just like that?” He 
snapped his fingers. 

“You can find some way that won’t hurt her feelings.” 

“Any way would be treating her rough.” 

“She’ll have no difficulty getting another engagement.” 

Cleeburg had been watching her over his cigar, round 
eyes studying her as they were in the habit of doing at 
rehearsal. Now he snapped the weed into the other 
corner of his mouth and smiled benignly. “That’s ex¬ 
actly why I ain’t letting her go.” 


MADAME PEACOCK 


109 


Jane Goring’s eyes met his with a delicate film of tears 
veiling them. “Don’t you want to please me?” 

“I want to please the public,” said Cleeburg curtly, 
“and they like her. Say—what’s got into you, Jane, any¬ 
how?” 

“I don’t know! I don’t know!” A few tears, well 
chosen, rolled over onto her white cheeks. She brushed 
them away. “I’m just miserable, that’s all. Last night 
made me so nervous that I gave a perfectly rotten per¬ 
formance. Just playing opposite her gives me goose- 
flesh. Something about her chokes me and she seems to 
feel it—to revel in it. She’s a snake, ’Dolph, and I 
simply can’t stand her.” 

“Seems to me a pretty nice kid.” 

The hand resting on his arm traveled its length. 
“ ’Dolph,—isn’t it important that I should be happy in 
my work?” 

“Sure! ” 

“And if she makes me unhappy?” 

He gave her hand an understanding squeeze and a 
slow twinkle appeared in his round eyes. “Ah, come on, 
Jane! Talk straight to yourself! She’s made too big 
a hit to suit you. That’s what’s eating you.” 

For an instant Jane Goring said nothing. A hard line 
tightened her mouth, but quickly she dissipated it, re¬ 
placing it with a deprecatory smile. 

“How absurd, ’Dolph!” 

“ ’Course it’s absurd. Don’t try to hog it, Jane! Give 
the kid a chance! ” He dropped back, regarding his cigar 
contemplatively. 

“But I tell you that’s not the reason, I simply can’t 



110 FOOTLIGHTS 

do anything if she’s in the company. She makes me 
bristle!” 

“Because she gets a big hand,” he put in. “Because 
she holds up the show!” He leaned forward once more. 
“And you honestly think I’d let a find like that get away 
from me?” 

Jane Goring got to her feet. She had attempted a 
new role. She had pleaded. Now she would play in 
character. She would demand. 

“Either she goes—or I do,” came succinctly. 

“Nonsense, Jane!” He, too, was on his feet. 

“I mean it. You can take your choice.” 

“Why, listen to me, old girl! You’ve got the public in 
the palm of your hand! You can afford to give the kid 
a square deal.” 

“I’ve told you—” 

Cleeburg’s round eyes narrowed. “What’re you trying 
to do—bully me?” 

“No. I want you to be fair.” 

“I am fair—to all concerned—” 

“Except to me who should be your first consideration.” 

“Look here, Jane, you’ve had things pretty much your 
own way for a good many years. To me there wasn’t 
anybody—not one of ’em—in your class, either as actress 
or woman. Darned if I wasn’t even afraid of you! 
You’ve laid down the law more than once and I let you 
get away with it. But I can’t let you grab a find out of 
my hand, just like that!” Again the fingers snapped. 
“And I won’t!” 

The peacock’s shriek is the one unbeautiful thing about 



MADAME PEACOCK 111 

him. It is blatant, raucous. It is crude as the rasp of 
iron on stone. 

Jane Goring’s voice rose belligerently to the housetops. 
“And I tell you, I won’t have her putting over that 
sob stuff on me! I won’t have it! I won’t have it!!” 
Stripped of iridescence, shorn of plumage, she stood fac¬ 
ing him, nails grinding into palms, head thrust forward 
and upward, body rocking with the same fury that had 
seized her the night before. 

Cleeburg came to her, his round eyes softened and 
troubled, and put a hand on her shoulder. “Come, come, 
Jane! Don’t let’s do anything hasty. You and I’ve 
pulled along pretty comfortably for a long time. This 
thing is a tempest in a teapot. Let’s both think it over 
and have a nice calm talk later in the week.” 

When he had left, she settled down to weigh things 
and balance accounts. 

First and foremost, one discomforting thought was 
uppermost—she was losing her drag with her manager. 
It had been a revelation, amazing, most difficult to face, 
most delicate to handle. A few years ago ’Dolph Clee¬ 
burg would have been, as he had frankly stated, afraid 
to cross her. Hers would have been the last Word, the 
decisive one. Such incidents as the cutting of scenes, the 
dismissing of actors to whom she objected, were occur¬ 
rences not uncommon. Gloria Cromwell would simply 
have received her two weeks’ notice accompanied by a 
pleasing smile from Cleeburg and, since he liked her, a 
contract and promise to put her in his next production. 
To-day Jane Goring had met open defiance, backed with 


112 


FOOTLIGHTS 


a twinge of ridicule even harder to endure. Not subtly 
but poignantly she felt it. That smile that had lurked 
in his eye when he called the green-eyed monster by its 
right name—there was no mistaking it. 

Just one course remained. Her brain sprang instantly 
to that—to tighten her hold on him in some other way so 
that her will would still be the lever directing their busi¬ 
ness association. At any cost it must be accomplished. 
Times innumerable he had begged her to procure a di¬ 
vorce from the husband with whom she did not live, and 
marry him. That answer was the obvious one to her 
present situation. It gave to Jane Goring the one safe 
solution. 

She did not hesitate, did not stop to weigh Bob’s wishes 
in the matter. Circumstances had pushed her to take 
the step. Without delay she must act and efficiently. 
Immediately and as quietly as possible the whole affair 
must be put through, consummated. It must not be the 
usual theatrical divorce, with blaring of trumpets and 
long columns in the newspapers. If it could be managed, 
she wanted no publicity at all. Just as her present mar¬ 
riage was unknown generally, so would she conduct her 
second venture. 

Having arrived at a solution she called up her lawyer, 
made an appointment and drove downtown. 

Two hours later she left his office, a shadow across 
her eyes, her face drawn and a bit haggard. The thing 
was not so easy as she had anticipated—impossible, in 
fact, in New York as matters now stood. They had 
thrashed it out—viewed it from every conceivable angle 
—to reach a conclusion that placed the final decision en- 


MADAME PEACOCK 


113 


tirely in Bob McNaughton’s hands. Unless Goring were 
willing to leave the state long enough to establish a resi¬ 
dence, Bob was the one who must sue. He must be 
located, which would involve no great difficulty, and then, 
granted his consent could be gained, it would take the 
red tape of the law an indefinite time to unwind. 

What worried her was the fear that Bob might take 
this occasion to be nasty. The long silence since he had 
gone West made it difficult to gauge his attitude toward 
her. More than likely he would refuse and cause her no 
end of trouble. 

When she received word from her attorney that, 
through his former paper, Bob had been located with the 
Graystone Photoplay Company in Los Angeles, she de¬ 
cided to write instead of trusting to the cold terms of a 
legal request. 

Very carefully she worded the letter, making it most 
friendly but with the impersonal friendliness of those 
whose lives have never intimately touched. Since she 
had not heard from him in over two years, she wrote, she 
was quite sure he had by this time come to regard her as 
a sort of mythical being. Their separation had become 
so complete that a request she was about to make would, 
she knew, be nothing short of welcome to him. She 
wanted him to have his freedom. Herself—she no longer 
wanted to feel bound. She would always think of him 
as the best friend she ever had, but so many years had 
elapsed since their relationship had been that of husband 
and wife that it was rather a farce to keep up the pose 
any longer. She was sure he would agree in this. Know¬ 
ing the New York laws he must realize that the move 


114 


FOOTLIGHTS 


would have to come from him. California, she under¬ 
stood, was more lenient, and since he was now a res¬ 
ident, it would be practically easy. She assumed that by 
this time his health had been entirely restored and wished 
him every good wish in the world. 

Before sending off the letter she gave it to her attorney. 
Stamped with his approval but with no slight misgivings 
on her part, it was registered and posted; then tossed 
carelessly into a bag with thousands of others—tear- 
stained, anxious, pleading, desperate, breathless, threaten¬ 
ing, thumb-marked, hopeless—all jumbled as human 
emotions are jumbled together in this puzzling world. 
With these it was flung into a mass of other bags similarly 
] aden and started on its way across the country. 

Meanwhile instead of resuming their discussion, ’Dolph 
Cleeburg had diplomatically avoided seeing his star. For 
several days he stayed away from the theater and Gor¬ 
ing was forced at every performance to endure the girl’s 
entrance—the applause that apparently had become a 
habit. 

The climax came when one of the Sunday papers fea¬ 
tured the young actress’s picture on the same page as the 
star’s. That was the proverbial straw. 

Jane Goring scorned any further attempt to bring Clee¬ 
burg round to her way of thinking. If he was afraid to 

see her, was determined to keep Cromwell in the cast_ 

very well, she would read him a lesson. She would prove 
to him who was the motive power that kept his play go¬ 
ing. She would show him in whose hands lay his success 
or failure. Incidentally she would resort to the very 
feminine ruse of playing on his sympathy. 


MADAME PEACOCK 115 

At seven-thirty Monday evening she sent word to the 
theater that she was ill and could not appear. 

As she had anticipated, the stage manager phoned 
wildly, begging for a word with her. The situation was 
terrible! Terrible! She must come! They were sold 
out! 

Goring smiled. It was just what she had looked for. 
No understudy for her had been engaged so far. It was 
a matter with which they never concerned themselves, 
for no one could have replaced Goring with the public. 
The theater would have to remain dark—Cleeburg would 
have his lesson. Madame was very ill, her maid replied, 
too ill even to answer the telephone. The stage manager 
urged. He pleaded. In vain! A few minutes later 
Cleeburg himself was on the wire. Couldn’t she drag 
herself downtown? She must! To him she spoke, her 
voice so weak that it could scarcely be heard. She had 
tried—impossible. Her heart— And then the maid 
once more took the wire. Cleeburg was frantic. It 
meant a refund—the loss of thousands. He almost wept 
into the phone. At the psychological moment the maid 
told him madame had fainted. 

Jane Goring slept that night with a smile on her lips. 

She woke up in the morning to read that at half an 
hour’s notice Gloria Cromwell had gone on in her place 
—and hit Broadway straight between the eyes. 





CHAPTER V 


S OME months later word came from the West that 
Bob McNaughton had secured a divorce. There had 
been no personal reply to her letter. Calmly and quietly 
he had complied with her request, his lawyer merely no¬ 
tifying hers that Mrs. McNaughton’s wishes would be 
carried out to the letter. No possible way had she of 
gauging how he had taken it, no possible manner of know¬ 
ing how, after all the years, such a request had affected 
him. 

Her relief was like a gale of wind sweeping over the 
city after a stifling day. For months she had been trem¬ 
bling on the brink of terrifying uncertainty. The day 
following Gloria Cromwell’s amazing success had found 
her really ill, so ill that had she remained away from the 
theater that night there would have been justification. 
She was stunned, utterly bewildered, sickened to the 
soul by the trick she told herself Fate had played her. 

Over and over she read the papers, as one gazes fasci¬ 
nated over the edge of a dizzying precipice. It was in¬ 
credible! And worse still, it might easily have been 
avoided. She might have accepted the girl, made her a 
protegee, gracefully posed as having discovered a young 
genius and pushed her to the fore. She saw all that 
now. And—further irony—it would probably have re¬ 
dounded to her credit, a neat bit of self-advertisement. 
As things stood she had made herself a laughing-stock. 
She could not bear the thought of it. 

116 


MADAME PEACOCK 


117 


On the verge of hysteria, she dragged herself out of 
bed and dressed for the street. When her maid dared 
to protest, she turned on the girl ready to strangle her. 

Walking rapidly westward she veered north when she 
reached the Drive. It was a dull day, no clarity of air 
to fill the lungs, no shimmer of sunlight through the 
heavy clouds. Skeleton trees reached gaunt arms to the 
sky. Thick mud covered the ground which a month be¬ 
fore had shown green and living. There was no cheer 
anywhere. Across the river the Palisades rose misty and 
unreal, as if they had never been more than mirages. 
Miles she made, on and on, seeking some way to still 
the terror voice in her breast. 

That night she drove down to the theater with a sense 
of dread. But whatever the flurry of gossip backstage, 
it ceased with her arrival. Members of the company in¬ 
quired concerning her health—that was all. While she 
was dressing a knock came. The maid opened and the 
Cromwell girl stood in the doorway. She took a rather 
timid step forward. 

“I’m so glad you’re back, Miss Goring.” She spoke 
with a note of sincerity unmistakable, and in her wide 
eyes was a look of pleading as of unspoken apology for 
what she had done. “I just had to come and tell you.” 

“Thank you,” Goring replied and for her life could 
not say more. Her hatred was a living, searing thing. 

The coup she had made in absenting herself accom¬ 
plished its end. Gloria Cromwell was withdrawn from 
the cast—to be featured by Cleeburg in a new produc¬ 
tion! 

Anxiously Goring waited for some reference to the 



118 


FOOTLIGHTS 


turn events had taken. None came, not even when the 
girl left the company. Little ’Dolph seemed to be full 
of the joy of living these days—cigar more active than 
ever, smile more genial, himself more generous to the 
down-and-outers and brimful of plans. In the weeks 
that followed he never spoke of their misunderstanding. 
Evidently his admiration had not in any way decreased. 
She had chosen, she concluded, the psychological moment 
to gain her freedom. 

When news came that it was consummated the weight 
of uncertainty lifted. She felt buoyant, with a clear 
course to steer ahead. Not that she was at all eager to 
marry her manager. But since it was the one sure way 
to secure her future, it must be gone through. 

She will always have reason to remember the bright 
spring day when she dropped into his office to break the 
news. For some time he had known Bob was suing. 

“Glad to hear it,” he remarked when she told him 
everything was settled. Then he swung round in his chair 
and gazed out of the window at a pair of fleecy, flutter¬ 
ing clouds in the very blue heavens. 

“Well, I took your advice, Jane,” he added casually. 

“What advice?” 

“Remember telling me once to make that Cromwell 
girl change her name? I went ahead and did it.” 

“You did?” 

“Sure! Changed it for her. She’s Mrs. ’Dolph now.” 
And he grinned happily. 

She understood then why he had been grinning in just 
that way for a number of weeks. Had she not been so 
absorbed in self, she would have noticed that his smile 



MADAME PEACOCK 


119 


was gayer—different from any he had ever worn. It 
made his face quite boyish. 

The decline of Goring after that was gradual. As a 
matter of fact, it could have been dated actually from 
the night of her non-appearance. Upon the heels of that 
night followed a change, scarcely noticeable at first, in 
the sea of eyes and lips and hands to which she looked 
for signs of approval. Slowly—oh very slowly—there 
crept into the audience’s response to her a quality me¬ 
chanical, automatic almost, as if largely force of habit, 
a quality that presaged the beginning of the end. 
Whether in herself or the public she could not tell. It 
was nothing tangible, nothing definite. But something 
had happened. The fine thread by which an actress 
chains herself to popular favor had snapped. In vain 
she told herself it was just nervous imagination. It made 
her choke with fear. 

One thing Jane Goring had failed to take into consid¬ 
eration: Than the highest rung of the ladder there is 
nothing higher; and unless one dies having reached the 
top, there must be a descent. Youth pushes its way up¬ 
ward relentlessly, and those who have been must make 
way for those who will be. A ladder with top rung over¬ 
crowded would of necessity break. 

Had she possessed the art of Bernhardt or the intel¬ 
lect of Fiske—that magnetic quality of soul that charms 
with the mellowing years—she could have laughed at 
time. But her ability consisted chiefly in a technique, 
the accumulated result of stage tricks that only up to a 
certain point can present itself as youth. 

With an eagerness that approached hysteria she reached 


120 


FOOTLIGHTS 


out for the adulation that for years she had accepted with¬ 
out question as her due. The thirst for it was the thirst 
of fever. Even the tame robins she had always regarded 
as more or less of a joke, she began to seek them as they 
in the past had sought her. The desire to be seen about 
pursued by youth; to lunch and tea at fashionable res¬ 
taurants in their company; to hold the center of the 
public eye at any cost, became a mania. It was as grim 
an effort as that of a doomed man to cling to the last mo¬ 
ments of life. 

And when a year or so later came the inevitable day 
when Cleeburg said to her—trying to speak gently— 
“Come, Jane, let’s talk horse sense. No use your try¬ 
ing to play a chicken! God knows you ain’t one!”— 
Jane Goring went home, flung open her bedroom win¬ 
dows letting in an uncompromising flood of sunlight, sat 
down at her dressing-table and looked herself squarely in 
the face. The whiteness—smooth, glowing—which had 
made her skin like gardenia petals in the old days had 
gone long since. She had grown accustomed to simulat¬ 
ing it with modern triumphs of the beauty parlor. But 
sitting there with God’s spotlight turned full on her, it was 
not the realization of muscles sagging as if pulled down 
by the hand of Time that made her shudder. It was not 
the gooselike shriveling of her throat when she turned 
her head that made her eyes shut with pain. It was the 
knowledge of ebbing self-confidence, the face to face ad¬ 
mission that her day was done. From now on it would 
be— “Let’s go to see Jane Goring. She used to be—” 
or “Don’t let’s go to see Jane Goring. She used to be—” 
But always “She used to be—” Always that. 



MADAME PEACOCK 


121 


There was no quibbling, no splitting of hairs. She 
knew! And with the acknowledgment she rose to her 
feet, a great overwhelming defiance seizing her. She 
would not let age get her. She would not go downhill. 
She would not become a has-been! Rather would she 
quit the stage now and let them say she had retired in 
her prime. Money she had—an income larger than she 
needed. She would cut herself off from the theater en¬ 
tirely; for looking in at the window of a house of cheer 
whose door is barred—that would be unbearable. She 
would have to travel, to seek diversion elsewhere. Then 
suddenly like the lifting of a rosy veil on barren waste, 
she saw her career a thing of the past and herself wander¬ 
ing down the declining years of life—alone. The desert 
youth takes no count of—aloneness—stretched bleak and 
endless, a reach of sand with no oasis to slake the thirst, 
no shade to cool the soul. 

And there swamped her with a sickening sense of need 
the longing for that bulwark of days gone, the one thing 
that endures, the one thing that counts not success nor 
failure, that survives when the ladder itself lies crum¬ 
bled in ruins. Giving it no conscious name, she knew 
only that had Bob been there he would have shouldered 
the burden of this cold hour of facing truth. He would 
somehow have contrived to make it easier for her to hold 
her head high and continue to look down, even though 
that look must be directed toward the sunset. 

Bob, whose adoration had helped her always over the 
difficult places, Bob would to-day and through all the 
days to come have stood by to help her bridge this most 
difficult place of all. 



122 


FOOTLIGHTS 


Bob!! Well, why not? 

Many hours she paced the floor, brows drawn together, 
hands clenched as if grappling with a flesh and blood 
thing. 

The peacock’s strut is slow and calculating. He lowers 
his head only to gaze upon his own reflection in the pool. 
To shed the trait that has made him world famous is to 
lay his gorgeous plumage in the dust. 

..The train steamed into the Santa Fe Station at Los 
Angeles. A woman descended, the sort to whom one 
gives a second glance in spite of tired lines round the eyes 
and little crinkles at their corners. Gowned in the latest 
cut of blue serge, with a tan traveling cloak swung across 
her arm, she cried New York the instant one laid eyes 
on her. 

She put her maid and bags into a cab, and sent them 
to the Ambassador Hotel. Stepping into another, she 
told the driver to take her to the Graystone Studio. 

It was an afternoon of late June. The languorous 
breath of California summer had kissed the foliage into 
mammoth bloom. They drove through lazy, sunny 
streets, somnolent under warm skies, into that vortex 
of activity modern commerce has planted in the midst of 
beauty, the frame of artifice sprung up mushroom-like in 
the very heart of Nature. 

Jane Goring descended at a row of small buildings that 
barricaded huge ones roofed with glass. She made her 
way past men and women with faces ghastly white and 
lips preternaturally red, mounted the steps and asked 
for Mr. McNaughton. The attendant wanted her name 


MADAME PEACOCK 


123 


but she insisted upon being announced merely as a friend 
from the East. She had given Bob no warning of her 
visit and her eyes followed the man with a look half 
curious, half eager as he opened a door and disappeared 
along a corridor lined with offices. 

He came back presently and shut the door. Mr. Mc- 
Naughton had gone home. She asked his address quite 
as a matter of course—in a way that brooked no refusal, 
and once more was driven out of bedlam to the quiet of 
drowsy green streets, past the beautiful Hollywood homes 
of picture stars who yesterday were unknown. 

Toward the sunset she went, melting amethystine into 
violet night. Shadows stretched across the road, cool 
and mellow, and a soft sense of fragrant tranquillity. 

She lay back, closing her eyes. When she opened them 
she had turned a corner and was pulling up before the 
lawn of a rambling Queen Anne cottage set snugly in a 
mass of shrubbery. She gave a little start, pleasure sur¬ 
mounting surprise. It looked very much as though Bob 
McNaughton had found time to make his own career. 

A gate with a lantern over it opened on a bricked 
path that led to the house. She paused there and looked 
in. Under a tree sat a man she scarcely knew. His 
hair was quite gray—iron gray—but the face under it 
was full and ruddy, the eyes keen, the mouth relaxed 
and smiling. The hand that held a newspaper which he 
no longer read was firm and capable. A hand accustomed 
to direct, the hand of a man sure of himself! Bob, who 
was almost fifty, looked less than forty! 

As she stood staring at him, the house door opened 
and a slim figure was silhouetted against the light from 





124 


FOOTLIGHTS 


within. The figure stepped to the lawn, light shining 
through masses of soft brown hair like a halo, eyes glow¬ 
ing, red lips parted in eager welcome, and with a cry full 
of sweetness held out something to Bob McNaughton. 
He gave a laugh, sprang to his feet, bent down to the 
eager lips, then caught the something swiftly in his arms 
—with infinite tenderness hugged it close against his 
heart. And it gave a gurgle of delight. 

Jane Goring turned and went back to the waiting taxi. 


GREASE-PAINT 


REALISM 

There is no such thing—either in life or the theater. For 
what is real to one is unreal to another. The tenement of 
the stage is real to those who live in drawing-rooms—the 
drawing-room, real to those who know only the squalor of 
tenements. That which seizes our imaginations with grim 
claws, shakes our emotions with sordid passions we have 
never experienced—we call reality. That which is uncer¬ 
tain, sad, elusive, delicate—we call unreality. Both are 
life! 






















































GREASE-PAINT 


CHAPTER I 

S HE had weary eyes—eyes with the weight of cen¬ 
turies of knowledge upon them—eyes that could no 
longer open wide with astonishment at anything life 
might hold. The lashes were so long, so dark and straight 
that they were like a veil of night shadowing the gray¬ 
ness beneath. Her gaze came through, inviting you to 
penetrate, urging you by its very weariness to try to 
read the story those eyes might tell. 

A slow smile lifted the corners of her mouth, then let 
them droop before the smile was really born. Her walk 
as she trailed from the first line of show girls in her wide¬ 
spread bird of paradise costume was as measured as the 
muse of tragedy. 

And yet she was only twenty-six. 

That was Naomi Stokes, who counted numberless ac¬ 
quaintances but few friends; who knew many men better 
than they cared to be known but few as well as she might 
have cared to know them. 

Broadway was a playground to Naomi but she had 
long since learned that in the game played there, none 
are winners. Time is the croupier who rakes in the 
spoils and at Time Naomi had ceased to smile even wear¬ 
ily. He stood with his long arm suspended, ready, it 
seemed to her, to pounce upon each hour she might hold 
dear, jealous of all she had crowded into one short life. 
Man she knew too well to fear but the croupier with 

whom she had gambled so long, she dared not look in 

127 


128 


FOOTLIGHTS 


the face. And as one sings in the dark to silence fear, 
so she had developed a philosophy of life which she held 
close in those moments when she might be tempted to 
take measure of things. She could not afford to pause 
long nor to think much. 

Of that glittering section which stretches like some be- 
jeweled recumbent queen of the night from Forty-second 
to Fiftieth Streets, Naomi was such an integral part that 
if a night passed without her appearance at one or an¬ 
other of the tightly wedged restaurants, their habitues 
wondered. When she moved between rows of tables with 
her long-lashed smile sweeping with lazy insolence the 
whole room, those who did not know asked who she was. 
Her name—in the theater merely that of another show 
girl—had for so long swung from lip to lip in the after¬ 
theater life of the White Way that soon it would of neces¬ 
sity be relegated to that past which hangs so cruelly over 
the present. 

Naomi knew this. And more than once, alone in her 
tiny two-room apartment and in spite of her philosophy, 
she wondered what would come after. A shrug avails 
little in the midday glare of reality. 

It was on a night following such a day—when the 
dregs of life had tasted particularly bitter—that Naomi 
and four others went to supper with Marshall Kent. 

Kent having more money than he could spend enjoyed 
spending it on Broadway. Having nothing better to do, 
he had never looked for anything better. He and 
Naomi were good pals in their way. He liked to stare 
through her lashes at the puzzle beneath. Most women 
were so revealing. 


GREASE-PAINT 


129 


But to-night she resented his set gaze, the ironic twitch 
of his thin lip. After her nasty, self-disclosing day she 
wanted a friend!. Some one to whom she could be some¬ 
thing more than heavy eyes and auburn-tinted hair, 
some one with whom she could share thoughts—and 
fears. But Marshy Kent had never given her friend¬ 
ship. No man had. 

All through supper she was silent, with a hard, shell¬ 
like silence her companions could not break. Finally 
she pushed her plate to one side and her glance sifted 
the smoke-thickened air. 

Beyond the table, in a space so small that they might 
have been squirrels chasing their tails, the crowd jostled 
and elbowed and glared at one another in an effort to 
keep time to a stamping, hilarious jazz. In the doorway 
beyond, another crowd jostled and elbowed and glared 
at one another and fought for the privilege of slipping 
crisp greenbacks to supercilious head-waiters. Through 
the befogged atmosphere the lights with their shades of 
brilliant yellow and black glimmered faintly. At the 
tables and on the dance floor jaded New Yorkers and 
curious out-of-towners pretended to enjoy themselves. 

Naomi swept it with a noxious sense of disgust. Sud¬ 
denly it seemed a ton weight, as if the ceiling like some 
infernal machine were descending upon her. She lifted 
her shoulders and her head went back. Oh, for a breath 
of real fresh air! 

“What’s the matter, my dear?” put in Kent. “Off 
your feed?” 

“No.” She brought her eyes toward him, then they 
drifted back to the crowd at the door. “I was just 


130 


FOOTLIGHTS 


thinking what a joke they are on themselves, fighting 
like that to get into a stuffy old hole where they’re going 
to be held up and fleeced.” 

Kent laughed. 

“Aren’t you worth the price of admission? You’re 
one of the exhibits, you know.” 

She shrugged. 

He looked down at the easy movement of the white 
shoulders under the narrow beaded straps that were 
the sole support of her black gown. 

“Any one with the eyes and arms of Naomi will al¬ 
ways count,” he consoled. 

She pulled from his gaze. 

“Oh, what’s the use! You know I don’t matter to 
them any more than to you. You play around with me 
here because you haven’t any better way to pass your 
time. And they, poor idiots—” 

“By Jove, you are off your feed!” 

She turned her back on his low, impudent chuckle. 

His tolerant eye traveled over the shoulder turned 
from him to the hot, wild mass clamoring at the doorway. 
Suddenly he became alert and a second later was on his 
feet, without apology pushing his way round the dance 
floor. Naomi saw him make for a man with a big frame 
and graying mustache who lingered impotently at the 
rear of the crowd. Kent reached out, grabbed his hand 
and with absolute disregard of intervening humanity, 
wrung it as if he never wanted to let it go. She won¬ 
dered vaguely what it would be like to have some one 
as glad to see her. He passed a word to the head- 
waiter. The red velvet rope dropped as if by magic 


GREASE-PAINT 131 

and, escorted by Kent, the party was led to a table a 
few paces from where she sat. 

The man glanced about with the curiosity, half 
amused, half critical of the sight-seeing stranger. Back 
of him came a girl of twenty-one or so with eager gray 
eyes a thousand years younger than Naomi’s, white 
teeth showing through parted lips and hair the dense, 
dusky black of an Indian’s. At her side walked a young 
man. As he passed Naomi, their glances met. They 
locked with that odd, unintentional arresting which 
means that two out of a vast throng have momentarily 
become individuals. Naomi’s slow gaze followed as he 
w T ent on and it seemed to her that in the allotting of 
places, he deliberately chose the one facing her. 

Kent hovered over his friend with beaming enthu¬ 
siasm. The ironic twitch of his thin lips was gone. 
The somewhat sagging shoulders of the man who keeps 
flesh down by massage rather than exercise had straight¬ 
ened. He scribbled his address. He took theirs. He 
admonished the waiter to treat them well, received that 
gentleman’s reassuring nod, and apologized finally for 
having to return to his own table. 

Naomi watched the younger man’s face as Marshall 
Kent sat down beside her. No—she had not been mis¬ 
taken. She who knew so well how to read men’s eyes 
saw in his dark ones a look of intense, concentrated in¬ 
terest. The girl next to him saw it, too—and following 
it, thought she had never seen a face more fascinating 
than the one so smoothly white with its heavy-fringed 
lids and wave of glinting hair across the forehead. It 
was artificial, of course, but then you got used to that 



132 


FOOTLIGHTS 


in New York. Her clear gray eyes went swiftly back 
to the dark ones that were fastened on Naomi’s. 

Kent pulled in his chair and settled back. 

“Well, little Marshy’s all het up!” one of the girls 
prompted. “Who’s your friend?” 

He was still beaming. 

“Fellow I haven’t seen since college—Alec McCon¬ 
nell. I was chucked. He went through to the finish. 
Mining engineer—big man in Idaho to-day.” 

“And the other two?” queried Naomi casually. 

“The one staring at you, my dear, is the son of Bill 
Dixon of Dixonville, Oregon, big ranch owner, king of 
the apple country.” 

“And the girl?” 

“Little friend of his being chaperoned by McConnell 
and his wife. First visit to the big town. Is that all?” 

Once more Naomi’s lazy gaze met the one which had 
not moved from her and a faint flush surged under her 
thick pallor. As the lids fell, they covered something 
of the look of the gamester. It was a calculating look 
that weighed possibilities, one she was quick to hide. 

Kent detected it rather by instinct than otherwise. 

“Oh, have a heart, Naomi!” he teased. “He’s so 
young and tender.” 

Naomi turned slowly in his direction. She said noth¬ 
ing for the moment but waited until the others got up 
to dance. 

“Well?” He was intrigued by her silence. “Well, 
Eve, do we tempt young Adam to eat the apple or do 
we let him go home in peace and grow them?” 

“I think we marry him,” she said quietly. 


GREASE-PAINT 


133 


Kent gave a start that brought him upright. Then 
he grinned, that drawling grin tinged with cynicism. 
The idea of any one marrying Naomi was amusing. She 
read his thought as plainly as if it had been put into 
words and her head went up suddenly. Though the 
lashes did not lift, a flash came through them. It was 
challenge. 

“You think I couldn’t?” 

“My dear Naomi—if you’ll pardon my brutality, I 
should say—not a chance in the world!” 

“Why?” 

“In the first place I have a hunch that little girl, Nan 
Crawford, has a pretty firm hold on young Bill. It’s 
plain to see they’re crazy about each other. Darn 
sweet kid, too. I suspect she’s here trousseauing. In 
the second, Bill is probably more sophisticated than you 
or I imagine. This isn’t his first visit to New York.” 

“I’m going to marry him just the same.” 

“And go out and live on an Oregon ranch, old dear?” 

“Yes.” 

He laughed aloud this time. 

“You’d look sweet in a sunbonnet and gingham dress.” 

“Just what do you mean by that?” she asked, not 
quite sure what emphasis to put on “sweet.” 

“Just this! You belong here as surely as grease-paint 
belongs in the theater.” 

“No woman belongs here,” she flung at him. “There 
isn’t a woman made who hasn’t the right to a home.” 

“Then why does she start here?” 

“Because she’s young and a fool—in nine cases out 
of ten. Because she thinks this is living.” 


134 


FOOTLIGHTS 


Her face went hard as nails; with contempt, with 
futility, with derisive defiance of herself. And then 
furtively she pulled a bit of lace from her bag and 
dabbed at her eyes. 

Kent’s mouth opened. It was the first time he had 
seen Naomi cry, had witnessed a woman’s tears without 
suspicion. Usually they meant that she wanted some¬ 
thing. 

“Don’t mind me!” She met his astonishment with 
a swift effort to pull herself together. “I’ve had a rot¬ 
ten day.” 

“How, my dear?” 

“Oh, just the realization that to-night it’s this, and 
in two years it’ll be ham and eggs and a lunch counter— 
if I’m lucky.” 

“Nonsense!” 

“Oh, yes! I’ll just drop out and you’ll forget me— 
like the rest. What’s become of Emy Steward—and 
Cora Greene—and Ray Granville? You don’t even 
know and you used to give parties for them like this 
one.” 

He was silent, knowing she spoke the truth. Like 
comets across a glittering sky those beautiful girls had 
gleamed and gone. Gone when their beauty had gone, 
vanished into the night that engulfed them, too proud 
or too forgotten to accept the humiliation of charity. 

“We don’t last long, boy,” she added grimly. “And 
I'm one of those who can’t keep on fooling herself. I’ve 
had a beast of a day.” 

“Hence the ranch idea in Oregon.” 

“Yes.” A queer twist lifted her lips—then dropped 


GREASE-PAINT 135 

them. “Inspiration, I call it. The Limited that will 
carry me away from the poorhouse!” 

“You’ll never put it over.” 

“Sporting enough to lay odds on it, Marshy old dear?” 

In all justice to Marshall Kent, it must be admitted 
that under normal conditions he would not have taken 
her up. But the restaurant happened to be one of the 
many which prided itself that prohibition meant nothing 
in its life and the silver flask reposing on Marshy’s 
hip had been refilled on frequent visits to a side chamber 
just off the main room. He looked out of the corner 
of an eye at Naomi stepping in where angels might fear 
to tread and the flushed, grudging admiration of game¬ 
ster for gamester darted in the glance. 

“You’re on!” he said 

“And you’ll keep off!” she urged, a bit breathless. 

“Yes—I’ll give you ground. What stakes?” 

“If I lose—” 

“Yes?” 

“We’ll make it a hundred perfectos, best brand.” 

“Nice and impersonal!” observed Marshy, head to 
one side, now well into the game. “And if you win?” 

“The handsomest wedding present in town!” 

“I call that odds in your favor.” 

With a faint smile she leaned nearer, hand out¬ 
stretched to clinch it. 

“Hold on! What’s the time limit?” 

“When he starts west I start with him.” 

“It’s a go. Only don’t expect any help from me.” 

“I won’t—except an introduction when he stops here 
on the way out.” 


136 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“What makes you think he’ll stop?” 

“I know he will. He’ll find some excuse to.” 

And he did, of course. Waveringly, as he drew nearer 
the magnet of her eyes, he paused and tapped Marshy’s 
shoulder. The latter sprang up. 

“Mr. Kent, we’re such a bunch of rubes—I thought 
you might recommend the best show in town for to¬ 
morrow night.” 

Naomi waited as Marshy considered. 

“Why don’t you send your friend to ours?” she sug¬ 
gested in a low voice apparently to him alone. 

“What one is that?” asked the friend, flashing eageriy 
into the breach. 

Kent introduced him then to the upraised eyes round 
the table. But he saw only Naomi’s veiled ones. She 
gave him the name of the musical comedy and the 
theater—nothing more. And as he bowed and rejoined 
the older man and the girl with the dusky hair standing 
in the doorway, Marshall Kent dropped into his chair 
again. 

“Quick work, Naomi,” he murmured, “and Machia¬ 
vellian method! One more move from you and the ap¬ 
ple wouldn’t have looked nearly so inviting.” 




CHAPTER II 


My dear Miss Stokes, 

This will be the fourth time I’ve seen the show and the 
third time Tve asked you to go to supper. If you tell me 
you can’t again, I’ll think you don’t want to—and quit. No, 
on the whole, I won’t quit. I’ve never done that in my 
life. I’ll just hang round and bother you till you come, so 
better come to-night. I’ll be waiting for you. 

Sincerely, 

William Dixon. 

Naomi lifted the head-dress of paradise that swayed 
round her face and handed it absently to the dresser, 
still concentrating on the note which had been delivered 
at the theater by special messenger. 

“Sincerely, William Dixon.” Numberless notes she 
had received during her show girl career, but never one 
signed just like that. “Sincerely.” Probably it was 
a card index of the man. 

She laid it down speculatively, the look of Eve through 
her lashes. Three nights she had put him off. Yes, 
the apple might safely be held a bit closer to-night— 
but not too close. 

He was waiting just within the stage door, his face 
eager with anticipation, his hands in the pockets of his 
overcoat. As she came up the stairs that led from the 
chorus dressing-rooms under the stage, he stepped for¬ 
ward and both hands came out of the pockets. 

She clasped the right one, smiling up at him, and 

137 


138 


FOOTLIGHTS 


his frank eyes shone. He piloted her to a car at the 
curb. As the door slammed with the sudden intimacy 
of shutting out the rest of the world, he leaned forward, 
the glow of his eyes reflected in his voice. 

“Gee, this is great! I was afraid you’d turn me 
down again.” He did not wait for an answer but 
crowded into the next few moments all the hours of 
thought which her refusal of his invitations had length¬ 
ened into days. “You must have thought me an awful 
rube, staring at you the way I did. I’ve been afraid it 
made you sore at me. Did it?” 

“No woman thinks a man’s a rube for staring at her.” 

“I couldn’t help it. I just couldn’t take my eyes off 
you.” 

In the shadows of the car she smiled softly. 

“Funny, how I walked into that place, cussing the 
smoke and noise and then saw you. Lord, suppose I 
hadn’t gone!” 

She smiled again. 

He went on. 

“You’ve seen me every night in the first row at the 
theater, haven’t you?” 

“Yes, I’ve seen you.” 

“And I think it’s a punk show,” his teeth flashed in 
a quick grin. “So now you know why I came.” 

She looked at him from under weighty lids. As if he 
had to tell her! 

“One lone show girl can’t be worth a speculator’s 
ticket four times,” she prompted. 

“She’s worth lots more than that. Thank you for 
coming to-night.” 


GREASE-PAINT 


139 


His voice turned serious. He tucked the robe into 
her corner of the seat for no other reason than the 
magnet of bending over her, of breathing the faint fra¬ 
grance that wafted from her like an aura. It was the 
ghost of grease-paint and flowers, of powder and perfume 
—that strange, exotic pot-pourri of the theater that 
clings to its women like essence of old Egypt. 

She gazed down at the bent head, at the hands that 
brushed hers with a boyish lingering as they drew the 
robe closer. How young he seemed! She felt for the 
moment much as a man of the world feels when within 
the scope of his worldliness there appears a radiant 
young girl. There was the same thrill of interest, the 
same desire to be the one privileged to open up avenues 
of possibilities. A man on Broadway who had some¬ 
thing to learn! It was like finding a canary in a cage 
of monkeys! 

The strange exuberance was with her as they made 
their way among crowded tables to the one he had re¬ 
served. Amber satin clung to her supple body and long 
jet earrings almost touched her shoulders. She was 
conscious that in the attention she drew, she was giv¬ 
ing him the sense of pride every man feels when the 
clatter of forks stops momentarily in tribute to the 
woman with him. But more than that, she had a sud¬ 
den personal satisfaction in his pride and a curve softer 
than any her lips had known for years lifted their cor¬ 
ners. 

His tanned skin and eyes that glowed seemed lifted 
straight to the sun rising above the mountains. She 
took a deep breath, as if from him she could get the stim- 


140 


FOOTLIGHTS 


ulus of all outdoors. He looked at the slope of her 
white shoulders, at the droop of her shadowed eyes, as 
if in her were epitomized the lure of the city. 

She leaned across the table just as he did. Their 
hands almost met. Naomi had long, languid fingers 
that invited the touch. 

“You’re so—different,” he began. “So awfully dif¬ 
ferent. I guess that’s no news to you, though.” 

“So are you—different.” 

“Me?” 

“Yes—from any man I’ve ever known. You’re like 
fresh air. The others are—stuffy—like a room that’s 
been shut tight.” 

He gave an embarassed, pleased laugh. 

“Tell me about yourself,” she suggested, lifting the 
lever best calculated to open up the dam of formality 
where the male of the species is concerned. 

“Oh, nothing much to tell about me.” 

And he proceeded to tell it while they went through 
two courses. She got a vivid picture of Bill Dixon, a 
colt straining always against harness of any kind; a 
lad loathing routine to such an extent that he had quit 
college rather than submit to it; a young man, impul¬ 
sive as the wind, more tied to the picturesqueness of 
ranch life than to the business of it; an only son wor¬ 
shipped by the man who had paved the way, who was 
both father and mother to him. 

He bent nearer to the white hands. “Now tell me 
about you.” 

“That would take too long. And if you find out all 



GREASE-PAINT 141 

there is to know to-night, you won’t want to see me 
again.” 

“Won’t I, though! Besides—I could never find out 

all there is to know about you.” 

They danced. He was not a good dancer but as his 
arm went round her and his dark head bent to her 
glinting one, she felt herself completely encompassed. 
His bigness, his nearness, gave her a swift sense of 
helplessness that frankly frightened her. The reins of 
the future must be held in her cool hands, not in his. 

“I’m going to guess your age,” she announced when 
they were once more at opposite sides of the table, “if 
you’ll promise not to guess mine.” 

“I don’t give a darn how old you are.” 

“Oh, I’m not as old as all that. But you—you’re 
twenty-five.” 

“Next month. Bet, at that, I’m older than you.” 

“You are,” she lied, without a quiver. 

“But you’re the sort of woman who’ll always be young 
—even when you’re wrinkled and gray. It’s your color¬ 
ing,” he went on, promptly contradicting himself. 
“That wonderful white skin—I’ve never seen skin so 
white—and the sheen of your hair and those eyes that 
make a fellow sort of—sort of want to jump in.” 

The eyes smiled at him with infinite promise. 

“I think we’re going to like each other,” she said. 

“I know one of us does already,” he grinned. 

“You’re a dear,” she vouchsafed. 

They saw each other every day after that. He man¬ 
aged to bring it about, either for luncheon or early din- 


142 


FOOTLIGHTS 


ner or after the theater. At least he thought he was 
the one who brought it about. And as Naomi opened 
his impetuous notes, or the boxes that held great clusters 
of flowers ordered with awkward disregard of every¬ 
thing but quantity, the Eve-smile lifted the corners of 
her mouth and her eyes looked a trifle less tired. 

Occasionally they drove out to the country for the 
day. But the countryside near New York rather 
amused him. 

“It all seems sort of puny,” he would say as she sat 
with face carefully veiled from a too-revealing sun. “I’m 
used to snow peaks that touch the sky and trees so high 
that when you’re on the mountain trails above them, 
you look down and can’t see where they begin.” He 
turned from the inadequate hills to the more absorbing 
scenery of a woman’s face misted by a fluttering veil. 
“No, sir! When I come east, I don’t want this. I want 
New York—the excitement, the thrill of it. I want— 
you.” 

It was said softly. His voice held the word like a 
caress and, looking up, she read in his eyes what she had 
read in many men’s—except that added to it was the 
new element of awe. 

That new element became infinitely dear to her. She 
let him keep it. Except when their hands brushed acci¬ 
dentally—or so it seemed to him—they did not touch 
save for the clasp that helped her into a cab or expressed 
“good-night.” The warmth of his arms closed round 
her only in the dance. She met the light of his eyes 
with her own only across restaurant tables. No debu¬ 
tante could have held herself more aloof—perhaps not 


GREASE-PAINT 


143 


quite so much so. But Naomi did not play the ingenue. 
It was her world knowledge—world old—that fascinated 
him, that made her—as he had said—different. 

She amused him with cryptic remarks about the men 
and women who came and went, with stories of familiar 
characters on Broadway, with a touch of cynicism, a 
touch of pessimism, that lack of faith in human nature 
which comes with disillusionment in self. But this, 
young Bill Dixon did not know nor count. He merely 
tossed up his shaggy head with the deep, long laugh that 
makes the whole body tingle and begged for more. 

She managed to fill his days with joy of her when 
she was with him, with longing for her when she cleverly 
denied him her companionship. She was the hundred 
women to one man which her training had taught her 
to be, knowing that to him she would thus become the 
one women. She caught hold of his imagination and 
twisted and played with it as a cat with a ball of twine, 
tossing it this way and that but always with paw poised 
to pounce. 

And simultaneously there flared into her own soul an 
eagerness of which Naomi Stokes had long since counted 
herself incapable. It was as if that brown-eyed, ardent 
gaze held her with the same absorbing quality of his 
arms when they danced. She began to look for it— 
jealously as if it might escape her. 

Meanwhile in a hotel room that was just four walls, 
another pair of gray eyes, not veiled, not mysterious, 
watched for him more and more anxiously, saw him less 
and less frequently. The girl from the West whose first 
visit to New York was to have opened up a fairyland 


144 


FOOTLIGHTS 


of adventure for her and the boy she loved—the visit 
they had planned together—found its streets empty 
caverns at the foot of towering cliffs, saw in hotels and 
theaters and restaurants to which McConnell and his 
wife took her night after night in the hope of diverting 
her, only the possibility, eager yet dreaded, of singling 
from the crowd the faces of Bill Dixon and the woman 
who had taken him from her. 

She tried to hide her misery from the anxious eyes 
of her chaperones. But because she was young—a 
thousand years younger than Naomi—she could not hide 
it from the one she loved. And her quivering chin, her 
reproachful reminders of engagements he had over¬ 
looked, sent his mind and feet hurrying back to the 
woman whose red lips and drooping lids thrilled him 
like the dizzying lights of Broadway, like a draught of 
wine he had never before tasted. 

“Why does a girl think, because you’ve been together 
all your lives,” he blurted out one night as he and Naomi 
drove through the jerk and jam of traffic hold-up, “that 
she has a right to know your comings and goings as if 
you belonged to her? Good heavens, a fellow can 
change his mind, can’t he?” 

Naomi turned and smiled out of the window at the 
laughing sparkle of lights. The look, part sphinx, 
touched her mouth. In the dark he did not see its tinge 
of satire. 

He maintained for a second the silence that is usu¬ 
ally accompanied by a bitten cigar or cigarette half- 
smoked, the silence of irritation. Then he swung about 
impatiently. 


GREASE-PAINT 


145 


“You’re not like that, Naomi! You’d never ask silly 
questions.” 

She leaned over, touched the hand that clenched and 
unclenched against his knee. 

“Don’t be angry, Billie-boy,” she whispered. “I like 
to hear you laugh.” 

His other hand closed quickly over the white fingers. 

“What is it you’ve done to me? I always thought 
caring about a woman meant wanting to be with her 
because she liked the things I do, because we under¬ 
stood each other. That’s the way I felt about—” he 
broke off. “But you—I want to be with you because 
you’re so different—because I don’t always understand 
you. I can’t get enough of it—of looking at you, of 
listening to you. Naomi, do you care—a little bit?” 

She lifted her eyes, lifted her lips, forgetting the game 
she was playing, forgetting the stakes. Then before he 
saw the move, she drew back. Not yet! She answered 
him instead with a shadowy smile and the long silent 
pressure of the hand held fast between his. 


CHAPTER III 


I T was an afternoon of late March, grim and forbid¬ 
ding, as if winter had thrown a last shadow across 
oncoming spring. The steam heat, turned off in the 
chorus dressing-rooms during a week of balmy weather, 
suddenly sputtered on and sang through the whole mati¬ 
nee performance. 

Naomi came out of the stage entrance, fur coat hugged 
about her, and shivering a bit, made for the curb to 
hail a taxi. As she glanced up and down the street at 
the ant-like army of cars, one of them slid toward her 
and a man stepped down. 

“Why, hello, Marshy,”—she reached out a hand— 
“haven’t seen you in weeks.” 

He took it. 

“Jump in.” 

“Good! Buy me some tea, won’t you? I’m frozen.” 
“We’ll have tea at your place. I want to talk to 
you.” 

She turned and stared at him as he slammed the door. 
His voice didn’t sound like Marshy Kent’s at all. 
“I’ve called on you half a dozen times,” he supple¬ 
mented. “You’re never home.” 

“I’m busy.” 

“I know you are. That’s why I sidetracked you.” 
He did not speak again until they had mounted the 
flight of stairs to her apartment in a reconstructed house 
near the theater. But as she collected the seldom used 

146 


GREASE-PAINT 


147 


tea things, he walked impatiently up and down the room. 

“Naomi, we’ve always been pretty good friends, 
haven’t we?” he began. 

“Friends?” 

“Pals then,” he corrected, not knowing why. 

“Well, yes, I suppose so.” 

“That’s why I’m going to put something up to you. 
I want you to listen quietly and then I want you to 
stand by me. Naomi—I’ve done a lot of things in my 
young life that I’m not exactly proud of. But the worst 
that could have been said of me was that I’ve been a 
waster. I’ve wasted one or two fortunes that the old 
Kents slaved to pile up—on cards—on the wheel—on 
the ponies—on women—I’ve never been anything but 
a waster. But that goes in more senses than one. I’ve 
never been a cad. Not until a month ago.” 

He waited for some response but Naomi merely struck 
a match and touched it to the wick of the samovar. If 
a quick question did flash to her lips, she held it back 
and kept her eyes lowered. 

“You know when that was. I was non compos mentis 
and I egged you into making a bet—” 

“In other words, dear Marshy,” she filled in his pause, 
“you want me to let you off on the plea of—well, the 
undue influence of liquor. Of course I will.” 

He pushed aside her easy acquiescence with a sweep 
that almost knocked the cup from her hand. “But 
that’s not all. The bet’s not the thing that’s bothering 
me. It’s you. You and that boy, Dixon. Naomi, 
you’ve got to quit. You’ve got to, do you hear me?” 

“Quit—what?” 




148 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“Don’t play the innocent! You know what I’m driv¬ 
ing at. I’ve made myself your partner in the job of 
smashing that boy’s life. And I’m telling you—” 

“Wait a minute!” 

Very slowly she set down her cup. Very slowly she 
rose and went close to him. At the hard, driving note 
in his voice, at the sharp arraignment of his eyes, re¬ 
sentment brought her head up and her eyes defiant. 

“Marshy, men fall easily into the habit of talking to 
—to some women pretty much as they please. But in 
the years I’ve known you, you’ve never said a word to 
me that—that hurt. Don’t do it now—please.” 

“Then let him alone. I’ve been through hell this past 
week thinking of what I let those two young things in 
for. McConnell tells me the girl’s on the verge of col¬ 
lapse,—can’t eat, can’t sleep, just sits and waits for the 
boy to come and he stays away. Why, they grew up 
together, those kids. They were as good as engaged. 
And now he’s chucked her—for you.” 

He reached out, caught her by both shoulders with 
hands that shook. 

“I must have been crazy to take you up that night 
and promise not to interfere. If you don’t cry quits, 
here’s where I do! Young Dixon is a damn fine boy 
—McConnel says one of the finest—and I’m not going to 
stand to one side and see you smash his life and break 
that little girl’s heart. Understand?” 

The eyes that traveled up to his were more weary 
than he had ever seen them. 

“What about my life, Marshy? Doesn’t that count 
—at all? Doesn’t it matter that I’d like a chance? 


GREASE-PAINT 


149 


That perhaps if I marry Bill Dixon, he’ll never 
know—and I can forget? Doesn’t it matter that you’d 
be helping me away from being a has-been—and all that 
goes with it? Do you ever think of the hours I spend 
here in the dark—alone, trying not to see what’s going 
to happen to me when I count even less than I do now? 
But no, of course not! Only—if it were the other way 
round, Marshy, and I was a man and he a girl, you 
wouldn’t see any harm in it—would you? If it were 
you, Marshy, and a young girl—” 

“That’s different!” 

“Why is it different—why? It’s a man standing up 
for a man where he wouldn’t for a woman—that’s the 
only difference. It isn’t that you’re any better than I 
am. It’s only that you think all men are.” 

“Look here, Naomi, I know it’s hard on you, my 
putting it the way I have to. But conditions are condi¬ 
tions. We’ve both faced them too long to try and buck 
them. You keep away from that boy and you won’t' 
regret it. I’ll guarantee that—any way you like. 
What’s it worth—?” 

“Marshy—you’re not trying to buy me off!” 

“Don’t put it so baldly—” 

He stopped. For her head had gone back and a 
laugh startlingly high and sharp cut the sudden stillness. 

“So you’re afraid of me, that’s it! It’s gone that 
far. He’s declared himself for me—and against her. 
It’s come to a crux, then—and McConnell’s asked you 
to help. Why, I didn’t dream it! I couldn’t have 
hoped for so much in such a short time. I wouldn’t 
have believed it.” 



150 


FOOTLIGHTS 


Even with that high laugh of mockery, her shadowy 
eyes filled with the vision of the boy fighting—fighting 
them all doggedly, with hot, flaming defiance—for her 
—and it was sweeter than the thought of triumph. 

Kent’s voice broke in, uncompromising as judgment 
itself. 

“I know a way to stop it—without you. I hesitated 
to use it before. It didn’t seem cricket. But I’m going 
to him now with the plain, unvarnished truth—the story 
Broadway tells when it hears the name, Naomi Stokes,— 
the story I can add a few chapters to.” 

“Marshy!” 

“I’ll show him what a blithering fool he is. I’ll prove 
it the way I can. We’ll see then!” 

The vision vanished from Naomi’s eyes. She caught 
his arm, clutched it with the clinging fingers of a child 
who in sleep plunges from dreams into nightmare. 

“Marshy—you wouldn’t do that! You couldn’t! 
Why, you called yourself my pal. Could pals stab one 
another like that? Could I think of harming you that 
way? Not for anybody! And that boy’s nothing to 
you. Nothing! Won’t you give me this chance? Just 
this one. If you knew what it means to me! Marshy, 
don’t turn away. Listen—please—please!” 

But he kept his face turned determinedly from the 
pleading one streaked with tears, from the eyes he had 
so often smiled into when their mystery piqued and cap¬ 
tivated him in idle moments. And in the rigid line of 
his jaw there was no yielding. He merely tried to tug 
away from her clinging fingers and a short phrase an¬ 
swered her. 


GREASE-PAINT 


151 


“Do you cry quits—or no?” 

She steadied her lips. Her arms fell listlessly. But 
even as she met the question, it came less in the form he 
put it than in the thought of what Bill Dixon had come 
to mean to her. Not ease for herself, not insurance 
against bleak years ahead, not the road that led away 
from terror; but a boy’s hearty laugh and ardent eyes, 
the warm clasp of his hand, the strength of his arms, 
what it would mean to lose them. A light that lifted 
the weight of centuries shone through her lashes. A 
smile that trembled caught her lips. 

“It isn’t quits, Marshy. No! Either way you win, 
so we might as well play to the finish.” 

When he had gone, she sank on the couch and tears 
unlike the bitter ones of early dawn and hard noon 
streamed silently down her cheeks. They were tears 
of wonder and passionate regret, of gratitude that she, 
Naomi Stokes, could know this engulfing tenderness. 
The thing she had never dreamed might come was hers. 
She loved him. Nothing could take that away. After 
stumbling through the years, she had found in one brief 
month the dearest thing in the world. And now Marshy 
was going to snatch it from her. Was that his man’s 
right? No! She would fight him—the whole world— 
to keep that which had suddenly become her reason for 
being. 

Yet she realized that she was not armed to fight, not 
Marshy, nor the world, nor truth. She, who had never 
lacked resources, to whom the game of life had been a 
game of wits, stood helpless now. 

She could only wait. 


CHAPTER IV 


N AOMI made no pretense of trying to sleep. She 
did not even resort to the bromide she was in 
the habit of taking when rest refused to come. She 
merely lay, with blinds drawn to shut out the early 
morning, trying to see light where she knew there was 
none. At ten she sprang up, hand to the throat that 
was full, lids covering the eyes that pained. Ever since 
Marshy Kent’s visit, those eyes had been straining toward 
the future, the result, inevitable almost, of his revelation 
to Bill Dixon. In the endless, wakeful hours of the night 
she had rehearsed, as women do, everything that had 
probably transpired. 

Yet even in her misery she did not overlook the care¬ 
ful mask of make-up, as mechanical a part of her daily 
toilet as the brushing of her hair, or polishing of her 
glistening nails. She had grown to avoid facing her 
mirror without it. 

She flung on a negligee of orchid chiffon that clung 
round her with the afterglow of sunset. But like the 
orchid, she sought the damp darkness of her living-room 
and sat with head resting against her locked hands for a 
long time before she made a move to raise the blinds and 
let in a shaft of sunlight. 

She had just lifted one of them when the sharp sum¬ 
mons of the bell came from downstairs. She pushed 
the electric button and waited without curiosity for the 

152 


GREASE-PAINT 


153 


apartment bell to ring. Then she opened the door and 
peered into the shadowy hall. 

A girl stood there. The girl with her hair like a 
black cloud and eyes young and gray and tense. 

They traveled hungrily over the other woman as if 
to get in that moment the viewpoint of another pair of 
eyes that no longer sought hers. 

“May I come in, Miss Stokes? You don’t know me 
but my name is Nan Crawford,” she explained as Naomi 
said nothing. 

Naomi nodded. “I know.” 

The girl looked up quickly. 

“Has he—has he talked to you—about me?” 

“I’ve seen you with him,” was the non-committal an¬ 
swer. 

“It—it’s about Bill I want to see you,” she brought 
out the words with the same halting pause which had 
marked her hesitation in the doorway. 

Naomi motioned her to a chair. The girl’s pale face 
went a tinge whiter. Her lips quivered. She looked 
down. 

“I’ve been wanting to come to see you and hadn’t 
the courage. Yesterday I followed you here in a cab 
from the theater. But you were with Mr. Kent. I 
didn’t come up.” She fidgeted with the slightly frayed 
silk of her chair. 

“Miss Stokes, I—I’ve known Bill Dixon all my life. 
I’ve loved him all my life—and I thought he loved me. 
He used to tell me so. We—we’ve always loved the 
same things and done the same things—together—in the 
same way. We’ve ridden hours on horseback up into 


154 


FOOTLIGHTS 


the mountains and gone shooting in the woods—and 
tramped to places other people didn’t know about. When 
I went away to school and he to college, we used to 
write each other about our woods and the longing to get 
back to them—together. We never planned anything 
—separately. We sort of always—belonged to each 
other.” 

She halted once more. It was because she couldn’t 
go on. The eyes lifted to meet Naomi’s were filmed. 
It was only too clear that she was putting herself through 
the ordeal of tearing open new wounds for some purpose. 
Naomi looked away. To play on her own sympathy, 
of course! She wouldn’t listen. It would do no good 
anyway. 

“I’m trying to tell you, Miss Stokes, how I love Bill 
Dixon—how much I want his happiness. And now he 
loves you. Oh, I don’t blame him! You’re very beau¬ 
tiful—more beautiful than I could ever dream of being. 
You’re like some gorgeous flower in a conservatory. I’ve 
never seen any one like you. At first I thought I could 
—perhaps—win him back—but I couldn’t. Not from 
you. I—I wouldn’t know how. I’ve thought about it 
a lot. And I—at first I thought I couldn’t live through 
it. But I’ve got to now. Bill can’t help loving you. 
I don’t blame him for that.” She got up suddenly and 
brushed a hand across her eyes. In the poise of her 
body, head thrown back, lip caught between her teeth, 
was life’s first big endurance test and her brave attempt 
to meet it. 

“But you’ve got to love him, Miss Stokes! You’ve 
got to make him happy. I’d give my life for him. 


GREASE-PAINT 155 

That’s the way you’ve got to love him, too. If you 
don’t—if you fail him—ever—I’ll kill you!” 

Waves of astonishment swept over Naomi. Those 
eyes that burned behind the film of tears! Surely this 
was not their message! To demand happiness for the 
man of whom she was being robbed—surely that was 
not what the girl had come for. 

“My dear child—” Naomi began, instinctively speak¬ 
ing as if to one years younger. 

“I mean it! You think I wouldn’t but I’m not afraid. 
I have nothing to lose any more.” 

She stumbled toward the door, one hand reached out 
gropingly. There she turned and once more her eyes 
traveled over the other woman. Naomi felt that from 
their clear gray gaze she could not shield herself. A 
girl so near her own age—the girl she might have been! 
And in that moment she knew that Nan Crawford’s 
words had not been bravado, not foolish threat. She 
was battling in her own way for the thing she loved. 

She opened the door as if, now that her message was 
given, she could not make her escape quickly enough. 

“Make him happy,” came strangled. “You must! 
That’s what I came to tell you.” 


CHAPTER V 


T HROUGH the window Naomi had lifted that morn¬ 
ing, the shaft of sunlight receded slowly until it 
slipped away. Naomi had been sitting in the same posi¬ 
tion ever since her door had shut on a girl stumbling into 
the dark hallway. She sat there without moving and 
with a queer little twist of wonder at the problems we 
bring upon ourselves. All her life she had drifted with 
the least resistant current and without thinking much. 
Now, of a sudden, thought had come smashing upon her 
with the devastating violence of a hurricane. 

As daylight grayed she rose a bit stiffly and lighted 
the few lamps that sent a glow through the room. 

She went into her bedroom and started to dress. 
Bill was coming at five to take her to dinner. All after¬ 
noon she had waited for his usual phone call, for the 
big box of variegated flowers so different from those 
other men sent her. Neither came. But a peculiar 
lethargy held her, made her conscious only of the numb¬ 
ness of futility. 

She dressed without haste in a plain dark cloth suit, 
feeling with a curious finality that Bill was not coming. 
He had never kept her waiting like this. Yet as the 
thought swept over her, a loud, long ring came from 
downstairs. She went to the door, stood with eyes 
fastened on the dusk. A figure loomed out of it, head 
bent, feet taking the steps two at a time. 

156 


/ 


GREASE-PAINT 


157 


He did not look up until they were in the room. Then 
his head went back and the look of desperation he wore 
made her go to him swiftly and push him into a chair. 
He sank down without resistance and covered his face 
with hands he made no attempt to steady. She lifted 
hers from his shoulders. 

“What is it, Bill? What’s happened?” 

“I—I’m late,” were his first shaky words. “Sorry.” 

“But what’s happened? Tell me!” 

“Naomi—I—” he broke off. “I don’t know how to 
put it. I feel that just telling you is an insult—” 

Ah, she knew now! She knew what was coming. 

“That man, Kent!” he stumbled on. “They had me 
all afternoon, he and Alec McConnell. I had to listen to 
things he said about you. If I’d been a man, I wouldn’t 
have given him the chance to say them.” 

Eyes clinging to hers, he waited for some question, 
some denial. He was giving her the chance to strike 
Marshy’s prosecution off the record without one word 
of cross-examination. He was urging her with his eyes 
to give Marshy the lie without even hearing what the 
man had told him. 

All her anguish of the night before had been, like 
so much feminine anguish, unnecessary. It was in her 
hands now. She had only to concoct a story of jealousy 
or an ancient grudge of Kent’s and this boy who 
had come to mean everything to her would accept 
it with the gladness of one who doesn’t want to ques¬ 
tion. Yet she turned her face from him and said 
nothing. 

“I listened until I couldn’t stand it. They made me! 


158 FOOTLIGHTS 

Then I knocked him down. Swine like that ought to be 
killed! ” 

“He’s not swine/’ she found herself saying in a 
voice that didn’t sound like her own. “He was prob¬ 
ably telling you the truth for what he thought was your 
own good.” 

“Naomi!” 

“Oh yes, it was probably all true. You don’t know 
what I am, boy. You don’t know what I’ve been.” 

He was on his feet, grasping her arm, straining down 
to read her veiled eyes. 

“Naomi, do you know what you’re saying? He ac¬ 
cused you of—” he halted. 

She took him up without waiting. 

“Of things he can prove to you, boy dear. I’ve known 
Marshy Kent years and years and he wouldn’t tell you 
anything about me he didn’t know he could back up.” 

In her submission to the inevitable, in her complete 
lack of defense, she was so helpless, so almost child¬ 
like that the boy’s fury against Kent flamed back to his 
eyes, burning out the horror of her dumb confession. 
His hands were knotted into the hard fists that had 
sent his informer spinning to the floor. His chin was 
fighting forward. His eyes fastened on the exotic beauty 
that was Naomi’s intensified by the fact that she was 
woman, helpless under the lash of another man. That 
was all he saw—a beautiful woman who needed his pro¬ 
tection ! And to every other vision his youth determined 
to blind itself. 

“I don’t care what he’s told me! I don’t care what 
you’ve been. I only know I love you. You’re the most ' 


GREASE-PAINT 


159 


glorious, fascinating woman in the world—and I want 
you, do you hear! I want you more than anything— 
more than anyone! I love you! Naomi—will you 
marry me—now—to-night?” 

Her eyes closed. All she had planned—all she had 
longed for! Marshy’s move had only succeeded in 
thrusting it more swiftly into her grasp. And yet she 
did not stop to think of that. All that registered were 
those three words: “I love you.” Their sweetness ran 
like some warm fluid through her veins. 

“We’ll get away from here!” he plunged on. “I’ll take 
you west—home. No Kents there to tell ugly stories. 
We’ll forget them ourselves. Nobody need ever know. 
We’ll be happy—and I’ll have you all to myself. Those 
lips and eyes—they’ll be all mine. Naomi—dearest— 
let me kiss them now!” 

Her arms had gone up instinctively but they dropped 
again without touching him. She held away, not look¬ 
ing at him. 

“No, Bill,—it can’t be.” 

“Naomi!” 

“No.” 

“You think that what he said makes any difference? 
I tell you, it doesn’t. I don’t care! I’d marry you—” 

“It’s not that. It’s just—I couldn’t make you happy, 
boy.” 

“Yes, you could. You’re the only woman—” 

“No—I couldn’t. Why, you don’t love me. You love 
the thing I represent—the thing that represents me— 
Broadway. Take me away from it and what would I 
be? A faded woman, Bill, a woman who would only 



160 


FOOTLIGHTS 


make you hate her because she’s so different from what 
you thought. And I’d rather never have you than to see 
you in a short time—oh, it wouldn’t take long!—disgusted 
with me.” 

“You don’t love me—that’s it!” he flamed. 

“If I didn’t love you I’d marry you. Sounds queer, 
that, doesn’t it?” 

“Then we both care! What else matters?” 

“Only that I want to give you happiness—and I can’t.” 

“You’re the only woman who can.” 

“No I’m not, dear. You think so now. But it’s the 
grease-paint stuff you love! Out on the ranch—with my 
hair its own color you’d wonder why you did it.” 

He paid no attention to her last whispered words. 

“I’m willing to risk it! I’ll risk anything for you.” 

“You’d find me out, Bill—you’d be bound to. Why, 
I never go out in the sun without wearing a veil to keep 
the secret of my complexion to myself. And there, where 
you belong, I’d be in the sun all day.” She tried to 
smile. “How would I look going round a ranch like the 
queen of a harem? No, you’d have to see me as I am. 
And in a week you’d hate me.” 

He went close, hearing only the sob in her voice. 

“Dearest—you think I’m young—that I don’t know my 
own mind. You think I don’t know my woman when I 
meet her!” 

She smiled now, with a little shake of the head. 

“You don’t. You only think you do. You love the 
way people look at me in a restaurant. You love the way 
I wear my clothes. You love my coloring. It’s put on, 
boy. And so is the sheen of my hair you rave about and 



GREASE-PAINT 


161 


the blackness of my lashes. It’s all fake—like me.” 

“Why are you telling me all this?” 

“Because—because you mean more to me than any¬ 
thing in the world. Because I’d rather have your happi¬ 
ness than my own.” 

Even as the words came, they amazed her. All after¬ 
noon they had been struggling deep down in her conscious¬ 
ness. A girl with stark young eyes had opened wide 
those veiled ones. 

“Then that’s the only thing that counts,” he retaliated, 
eyes alight, and his arms went out. “If you love me, I 
don’t care about anything else.” 

She pulled back. Once his lips touched hers, she knew 
she could not go through with what she had to do. Reck¬ 
lessly—while the mood held her—as if she were another 
person playing a trick on Naomi Stokes, she moved round 
the room, turning off the soft lamplight. A second later 
the central chandelier flashed its glare and Naomi was at 
his side again. 

“Wait, Bill—I want to show you something.” 

She disappeared into the bedroom. When she came 
back, there was a white rag clenched in her hand. 

“I’m not really beautiful the way you see me.” And 
even as she spoke the words her eyes were frightened. 
“I’m a faker—but for once I’m going to be honest with 
you—with myself. I’m going to let you see the woman 
you don’t know, the woman you’d see—out there.” 

Without pausing to give herself breath she dragged the 
cloth, weighted with some thick lotion, across her face. 
It came away covered with color. She threw it aside. 
The face it left lifted to his was like tragedy, unmasked. 




162 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“Look—I can scrape it off—the beauty you love so! 
This is the way I’ll be in broad daylight, Bill. These 
lines—they’re the years I’ve stolen from you. They’re 
the real me—the me you don’t know. Do you want me 
now?” 

He looked down on the face that in ten seconds had 
aged ten years. Dazedly he took in the circles under 
the eyes, the pinched lines from nostrils to mouth, the 
pallor of the lips. The luminous cream of her skin had 
given way to a whiteness that looked dead. All the ex¬ 
otic color of her—the color that fascinated him—was 
gone. It was almost as if some magic had wafted 
away the Naomi he knew, as if this were another 
woman. 

He stood there gazing down on her, confused, silent 
before the revelation he could not quite compass. Only 
the eyes of his Naomi remained, infinitely sad, infinitely 
lovely, even with the heavy black gone from their straight 
lashes. 

“You don’t want me now. You don’t want the woman 
I really am. Don’t stop to think! Don’t hesitate! 
Just answer me,” she whispered. 

But he did stop to think. Without quite meeting the 
eyes raised to his, holding his own away from the face 
that seemed suddenly a strange one, he lifted her two 
trembling hands, put them against his lips. 

“I’ve asked you to marry me, Naomi,” he said huskily. 
“I’m asking you again.” 

“Thank you for that, boy dear. You—you’re just 
everything I thought you were. But I’m not going to 
take you up. Not now! If you want me six months 


GREASE-PAINT 163 

from now, come back for me. I’ll know then—that you 
need me. Only, dear—you won’t come.” 

He looked straight at her then, letting himself see only 
the eyes which had not changed. And she knew before 
he spoke that he was bowing, without argument, to her 
verdict. 

“I’ll come back for you,” he told her. “I won’t wait 
six months. You’ll see!” 

She simply shook her head and no smile of hope 
touched her pale lips. 

A few minutes later she stood looking for a long time 
at the door that had closed after him. Then she put on 
hat and coat and went down the steps and over to the 
theater. 


CHAPTER VI 


Harvard Club, 

New York, July 30th. 

Dear Naomi,— 

This letter is going to be harder to write than an income 
tax report. When a man has never before been on his 
knees to a woman, they’re apt to be creaky and resist bend¬ 
ing. But I’m on my knees to you, my dear,—in tribute, in 
abject apology, in the tenderest feeling I’ve ever known in 
my life. 

Last March Bill Dixon went home and I sat back with 
the sensation of a good Samaritan. I was blithering ass 
enough to think I was the one who had sent him away. 
To-day, four months later, I’ve learned the truth. It came 
with the announcement of his marriage to Nan Crawford. 
He told me what happened. He told me what you had done, 
Naomi. 

I’ve never had much belief in women. I’ve always 
thought them rather a poor lot. That’s the penalty of 
having begun early to know the wrong side of them— 
assuming there was no other. But you’ve given an old 
stager a faith he’s never known. For that I can’t repay you. 
But whatever I have, whatever I can give you of devotion 
and friendship is yours, dear girl. Knowing what you were 
equal to doing for that boy has suddenly made life worth 
living for me. 

I haven’t seen you in months. Will you make up for 
lost time? Shall we go to supper to-morrow night? 

Yours—I mean it— 

Marshy. 


164 


GREASE-PAINT 


165 


Naomi’s eyes wandered from the letter to another that 
lay open on the desk beside it. It was in a boy’s rugged 
hand, incoherent, embarassed. It told of his approach¬ 
ing marriage and tried to thank her for making him see 
that the old love was the true one. She had read it so 
many times that she could have told what it told her— 
with eyes shut. 

She reread Kent’s letter then. After a moment she 
picked up her pen and wrote: 

Thank you, dear Marshy. I can use your friendship. I 
need it. But I’ve quit going out to suppers—for good. 

Naomi. 








' 





THE BACK DROP 


DRAMA 

Comedy met Tragedy at the crossroads of Life. 

‘‘Know,” spake Tragedy, “from Wisdom have I learned 
that thou and I emanate from the same source—born of the 
folly of man and nourished by his deeds. The tie between 
us is so strong that we must follow, each upon the other’s 
heels, as long as the road of life has its turnings.” 

“Then come,” laughed Comedy, “a bargain let us conclude. 
Let each forever carry some suggestion of the other!” 

So, with a tear in the eye of Comedy and a smile under 
Tragedy’s frown, they linked arms and proceeded down the 
road together. 











THE BACK DROP 


CHAPTER I 


RUDOLPH CLEEBURG 
Presents 

GLORIA CROMWELL 
in 

“LADY FAIR” 

A Comedy-Drama 
by 

Bronson Reed 

A CAR pulled up sharp at the curb and a woman 
leaned out to read the tall lettering. It loomed 
startling and white against a black ground. Along a 
street where theaters crowded each other like chorus girls 
in a manager’s office, that inky splash with its tracing of 
white paled to oblivion all the others. 

The man beside her watched her eagerly, studied 
the delicate profile with a kind of hunger. When she 
turned, his eyes went alight at the smile in hers. 

“It’s stunning, ’Dolph. But then you always do things 
right.” 

“Y’mean that? Do I always manage to suit you, 
kiddo?” 

“You know you do.” There was a low, tender note 
in the voice that would always be wistful. It was an odd 
voice—one that, breaking with the swift snap of a violin 
string, brought tears from its audience as one chokes at 
a broken chord. 


169 



170 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“H’m, that’s all I want.” He grinned sheepishly. 
‘'No fool like an old fool, eh?” 

He stepped out as the chauffeur swung open the door, 
and reached up to help her. Gloria Cromwell—in pri¬ 
vate life Mrs. Rudolph Cleeburg—was not tall and her 
intense slenderness made her look frail, yet standing next 
to her husband she measured a full inch above him. 
Any passerby taking in the round face, eyes and figure of 
the well-known manager, his bald pate and prominent 
features, would have smiled at the information that he 
was the most artistic producer in America. But then, no 
passerby would have noticed the hands, key to character, 
that tapered so incongruously. Even the man himself 
failed to take count of them. He knew only that he felt 
beauty like a tangible thing, that he expressed it through 
the two mediums he loved—the stage and his wife. 

He took her arm and they went down the cool dark 
alley to the stage door. It was a Sunday in September, 
hazy and languid, the first shadows of twilight creeping 
into the arms of night. 

In almost every building on the block rehearsals were 
under way. Behind blank front entrances with high iron 
gates locked fast, throbbed the pulsing life of the theatei. 
No effort too great, no work too intense, to give to the 
world its most human tonic, amusement. 

The dress rehearsal of “Lady Fair” had been called 
for 8:00 p. m. They were early, having made good time 
from their place at Great Neck. Gloria crossed the stage 
set for Act I while Cleeburg paused to suggest to the 
electrician some experiments with the lights. 

“Try a couple of reds, Bill, in the foots for Act II. 


THE BACK DROP 


171 


And cut out four or five of the ambers on top. They 
make her look too yellow, sick around the eyes. Get 
me? Too much shadow. We want to bring out all the 
flash in her hair. Light her up. It’s her big scene. And 
here—have a smoke!” 

He followed Gloria. She had tossed her hat on a table 
and stood taking in the new props he had provided while 
the company made the customary short tour that pre¬ 
cedes a New York premiere. 

With the shadows of the unlighted stage about her and 
the dusky quiet of the empty house stretching at her feet, 
she seemed to the man who went toward her deplorably 
young and tender, with a something yearning from her 
that he had tried to reach and never even been able to 
define. Not for the first time he asked himself: Was 
it the almost childish form under the soft summer dress— 
or the delicate line of her long throat—or the intense red 
curve of lip—or her pallor topped by the tawny hair 
whose lights and shades he was so intent on featuring? 
No, none of these! It was the look of her eyes. Wide 
and hungry, with fright in their depths, they had arrested 
him six years before as he hurried through his outer 
office; arrested him and found her a job. The fright had 
gone long since. And the hunger which had been noth¬ 
ing more than actual physical hunger. But the look that 
was so much like the quality of her voice still lurked 
there, eluding him. 

He came up behind her as she stood examining the 
heavy black velvet drapes with crests of blue, purple and 
gold embroidered in the corners. 

“Like ’em?” he asked once more anxiously. 


172 


FOOTLIGHTS 


She veered about. “They must have cost a fortune, 
’Dolph. Wouldn’t those blue ones we had on the road 
have been good enough?” 

“Not for you. Only the best for my girl! And look 
at you against ’em. Those newspaper guys are right— 
there sure is something about you that’s got the rest of 
the bunch lashed to the mast!” 

“It’s what you’ve made me, ’Dolph.” The words came 
breathless, with that strange fascinating catch. “You’ve 
put me over just the way you did the rest. Goring and 
Wilbur and Chesterton. Without you I’d have been just 
an actress. Now they call me an artist. And you’ve 
done that—you’ve done every bit of it.” 

With a furtive glance to make sure the electrician was 
still occupied he went closer, laid an arm across her slim 
shoulders and gazed eagerly through the shadows into 
her face. 

“Say that again. Of course it ain’t true. They were 
all piking compared to you. But say it anyhow. It’s 
music to me—the greatest symphony and greatest opera 
rolled into one.” 

“It is true.” 

“Then if I never do anything else for you, that goes 
on the right side of the ledger—what? Sometimes, little 
girl, I feel like I was a dog, grabbing you the way I did 
right after I featured you and you thought you couldn’t 
turn me down.” 

“Nonsense!” She caught his hand and her clasp was 
so tight it seemed to grip. 

“I’m a pretty old piece of scenery and not easy to look 
at, at that.” He glanced through the drapes at the back 


THE BACK DROP 


173 


drop. It represented a stretch of blue sky pierced with 
holes through which presently stars would glimmer. 
“Like that old thing/’ he added. “Just a piece of shabby 
canvas, good enough for background.” And as she 
started to protest he laughed, a laugh that wasn’t much 
more than a sound. “Why, even Doug Fairbanks won’t 
be able to kid himself he’s young when he’s past half a 
century.” 

He turned as several members of the company strolled 
in and greeted each with a hearty handshake. With 
a smile for every one and an ear ready to listen, the 
Cleeburg of to-day had the same enthusiasm as the pudgy 
newsboy who years before had run fat little legs off to 
procure for a patron his favorite daily. 

“Hello there, glad to see you! Well, they tell me we’ve 
got a knock-out. Let’s have a look.” 

He made for the rear of the house with his stage direc¬ 
tor who had accompanied the play on tour. 

The curtain up, he leaned against the seat in front, a 
long black cigar jerking from corner to corner of his 
mouth like a propeller. Not a gesture, not an intonation 
escaped him. His concentration ignored any world but 
this. Had the building burned down, that stage before 
him would still have been the pivotal point of interest. 

When Gloria appeared between the black drapes, eyes 
luminous under the untamed hair, and the thrill of her 
voice came over the footlights, he sighed and a smile of 
anticipation spread across his face. It was the look of 
one whose senses are about to be lulled by rare music. 

The play had all the quality of delicately written 
French drama, its big scene at the end of the second act 


174 


FOOTLIGHTS 


being calculated to bring even a New York audience 
straight out of its seat. Gloria and John Brooks were 
as finely teamed as a pair of high-stepping thoroughbreds. 
He had been her leading man two seasons. Little ’Dolph, 
with an eye to the future, had him tied up on a five-year 
contract. 

You would never have taken John Brooks for an actor. 
There was about his clothes no suggestion of the ex¬ 
treme that Broadway is tempted to affect. They were 
cut by a conservative tailor and he wore them with the 
ease of not caring particularly what he had on. Critics 
called him distinguished. When he walked into a stage 
drawing-room one knew instinctively that more exclusive 
drawing-rooms had opened to him. He never talked 
shop outside and never brought his social activities into 
the theater. But it was generally known that his friends 
numbered scientists and men of big business. 

On the stage he suggested a clean-cut Britisher, tall 
and well groomed, easy of manner, clipped of speech, yet 
with a more intense vitality and that gleam of humor 
under the straight black brows that is peculiarly, bless¬ 
edly, of, by, and for America. 

The manager sat back, eyes half closed, lapping up the 
charm of it as a kitten laps cream. When the curtain 
* fell he licked his lips and purred as he turned to the di¬ 
rector, Lewis. 

“You’re right, Lewy! Never saw a pair to touch ’em. 
Gad, that give and take, that playing into each other’s 
hands—nothing like it in this old berg, I tell you!” He 
sprang up, bounded down the aisle like a rubber 
ball. “Immense!” he shouted. “That act runs on- 


THE BACK DROP 


175 


greased wheels. It’s sure fire! They’ll eat it alive.” 

He climbed into a box; with amazing ease jumped on to 
the stage. Bulky as was his figure, almost pouter pigeon 
in certain postures, there was nothing funny about Clee- 
burg in action. It was the fire of his genius, the spark 
that lighted his homely face with inspiration, that com¬ 
manded respect. Even with a handkerchief tied round 
his neck as it always was in hot weather and the open 
sleeves of his silk shirt flopping like awkward wings, no 
one thought of smiling. One merely listened. 

He gave a few instructions to the property men and 
slipped back to his wife’s dressing-room, poking his head 
in at the door. 

She was changing to a tea-gown, a lovely shimmery 
gold thing that brought out the reds in her hair like 
touches of flame. 

“Well, how does it go?” she asked;. “Any sugges¬ 
tions?” 

“Not half a one. Couldn’t be improved. And John— 
he was made for you!” 

She dropped her eyes to examine a tiny rip in the 
train. 

“Better mend this, Suzanne, before I go on. It might 
catch on something.” 

“Glad we’ve got him sewed up tight. First thing you 
know, one of the boys’d be offering to star him and then 
biffo, we’d lose him!” 

“He i s —wonderful.” She did not raise her eyes as 
the maid’s needle flashed in and out of the soft fabric, 
then looked up suddenly. “Lewis thinks we have a big 

hit.” 


176 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“Lewis knows his business. You never had a chance 
that touched it—comedy and the big heart stuff com¬ 
bined. Try a little more red, honey. You look pale. 
Tired out, eh?” 

“No—just a bit nervous, that’s all.” She turned has¬ 
tily to the mirror, picked up a rabbit’s foot and dabbed 
some color across her cheek bones. As she bent for¬ 
ward, her teeth caught her lower lip and held it. And 
Cleeburg, noting the reflection of her eyes, fancied fright 
in them. Nerves, of course! Emotional tuning up of 
the vibrant artist! 

He went out front as the curtain rose on the second 
act. It revealed a boudoir. Not the sort bestowed upon 
woman by the average scenic decorator with its brilliant 
splashes of color and general air of a department store 
exhibit, but a room that suggested four walls enclosing 
feminine taste. 

Steadily Gloria and Brooks mounted to the big mo¬ 
ment when the man’s passion, like a torrent crashing 
through ice, carried the woman with it. They stood fac¬ 
ing each other and the voice of John Brooks came quiet, 
yet with the threat of doom. 

“We’ve played the game, you and I,—to the finish. 
And we’ve lost. No, not lost, because this is the end we 
wanted. We’ve been a pair of gamblers, banking on 
defeat, waiting to have the game get us. Now we’re 
going to lay down our cards, admit we’re beaten, and 
take what is greater than victory. You know what that 
is. I don’t have to tell you I love you—” 

The woman gave a terrified “No—no!” with arms 
thrust out to ward off the thing she had desired. The 



THE BACK DROP 177 

man followed with a quick laugh as he caught them and 
her to him. 

Cleeburg jumped up and speeding down the aisle made 
a trumpet of his hands. 

“Hey, John—play that for all it’s worth. Give it to 
’em strong. You fall down a peg or two at the end. 
Got to keep up the tension. Get me? Don’t be afraid 
of too much pep. Can’t be done in this town. Let go! 
Give ’em the love stuff till they faint.” 

Again and again he put them through it. Up to the 
crucial point it went superbly. Then something seemed 
to snap. It was less in Brooks’ rendering of the speech 
than the way he caught up Gloria and swept her to him. 
Instead of an onrush like a force irresistible, his embrace 
was almost measured. One felt that with very little 
effort she could have escaped. 

Sitting in the front row now, a puzzled seam between 
his eyes, Cleeburg noted that Gloria, too, appeared to 
hold off. Gloria, who flung herself into a part as if it 
were life! What had happened? He shook his head, 
began to pace the length of the seats. 

“You’ll let down the whole act, children. You’ll lose 
your curtain. Why, they’ve been wanting this to happen 
from the beginning. If you don’t give it to ’em and give 
it to ’em big, they’ll can you. Sure thing! Let’s have 
another go.” 

John Brooks’ thin lips came together. There was 
something tense about the way he went into the scene 
this time—muscles tight, hands clenched, voice husky. 
And when finally he swept her into his arms it was as if 
he would never let her go. Their lips met as the cur- 


178 FOOTLIGHTS 

tain fell. Even in the empty house one could feel the 
thrill of it. 

Cleeburg gave a chortle of relief. Just for a moment 
he had been afraid they were going to muff it. 

But he apologized for his persistence later over a bite 
of supper. 

“It’s the crux, old man. That’s why I kept you at it. 
You see, the woman is yours by every law of God. Once 
you know it, you don’t give a damn for the laws of man.” 

“I get you.” 

“Put over the feeling that it had to be. If you don’t 
the whole show goes fluey. You and the little girl do 
such bully team work, we don’t want one hitch to spoil 
it. Hope I haven’t played you out.” 

“Oh, that’s all right.” The other man smoothed his 
hair with a gesture of both long hands and looked across 
the table. “Afraid my thick head has tired Gloria, 
though.” 

She was leaning back, limp, face white as the moon 
that looked in between the pillars of the roof garden. 

“Not a bit.” Her lids lifted quickly and Cleeburg 
was startled at the fever under them. She leaned elbows 
on the table. “I was as stupid as John. We just 
couldn’t seem to get it.” 

“Well, don’t worry. It’ll go like hot cakes to-morrow 
night. You won’t worry, kiddo, will you?” He patted 
her arm anxiously. “I don’t like to see you look likd' 
this.” 

“Why, there isn’t a thing wrong with me—truly.” 
She turned to watch the dancers as they swayed past, 
two moving as one to the lure of darky music. In the 


THE BACK DROP 


179 


center of the flagged floor a fountain sent up showering 
spray colored emerald, ruby and gold by lights from 
within. The place was filled with a soft languor. It 
seemed set very close beneath the Indian Summer sky. 

When she turned back she found Brooks gazing at her. 

“Come to think of it,” observed Cleeburg, glance 
traveling from one to the other, “you don’t look any too 
chipper yourself, old man. Didn’t notice it when you 
got in this morning but you’re both played out.” 

“Gloria had a little smash-up after the performance 
last night. Been working at top speed. Nothing wrong 
with me. We’re both tired, that’s all. There wasn’t a 
breath of air in the train, either.” Brooks lifted his glass 
of cider and a dry smile played round his lips. “I drink 
to thee only with mine eyes,” he said to Gloria. 

Cleeburg grinned. “Say, why not come out to the 
house with us now? Give you something stronger. Stop 
off, shoot a few things into a bag and a night in the 
country’ll do you good.” 

Brooks put down his glass. “Thanks, no. Think I’d 
better stick to my own bunk.” 

“How about next week then? Run you out after the 
show Saturday night. You can try a couple of holes of 
golf with Gloria Sunday.” 

“Sorry, old man, I’m booked.” 

“Well, any time you like. Ain’t a place, ours, where 
you have to wait for a bid.” 

“I know that.” 

“What’s the matter with you anyhow? Last summer, 
you used to run out every few weeks. This year, have 
to beg you to come!” 


180 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“Not a bit of it,” laughed Brooks. “Wait till we get 
this opening off our chests and you won’t be able to get 
rid of me.” 

“Can’t come it too strong to suit us, eh kiddo?” 

Gloria’s eyes had drifted out to the swaying throng 
once more. “Of course not,” she said quickly, and 
pushed back her chair. “If you don’t mind, ’Dolph, I 
believe I am tired.” 

Cleeburg noticed as they went down to the car that 
her step lagged. When they had dropped Brooks at 
his flat and were speeding up Fifth Avenue, sleepy under 
the quiet hour when life in New York closes one eye, she 
turned swiftly. “ ’Dolph—you remember what you 
called yourself in the theater to-night—before the others 
came?” 

He thought a moment. Then his face went alight, all 
but the eyes. “Your old back drop, y’mean?” 

She nodded. “Don’t ever do that again—don’t!” 

Her vehemence made him shift his position so that he 
faced her. 

“Why, honey—” 

The break in her voice had been poignant. Her hand 
clasping his arm was feverish. He felt the heat of it 
through his thin coat. Even in the dark he could see 
her eyes, brilliant, with something of the fright he had 
read in them earlier in the evening. Only it was inten¬ 
sified. 

“Honey, what is it?” 

“I want you to know I love you,” she rushed on breath¬ 
lessly. “It wasn’t just gratitude that made me marry 
you. I’ll always love you. You’re splendid and fine 


THE BACK DROP 


181 


and generous. They don’t come any better. Never 
doubt it, ’Dolph! Never—will you?” She shook his 
arm, repeating the question over and over. 

“Why—kiddo—” 

“And I have made you happy?” she broke in on his 
amazement. “I have given you something for all you’ve 
given me?” 

He answered quickly enough then. 

“Everything, honey. Why, these past five years’ve 
been more than most fellows get in a lifetime. I ask 
myself often what an old tout like me ever did to deserve 
’em. In the theater and out—hasn’t been a day that 
wasn’t heaven. That’s what you’ve given me.” 

She sat an instant silent. Then before he could divine 
her intention she had carried his hand to her lips. But 
it was not their moisture he noticed as he drew it hastily 
away and slipped an arm round her. 


CHAPTER II 


O VER Long Island, as Cleeburg drove in the follow¬ 
ing day, hung a mist that made the low hills look 
like a mirage melting into the sky. It was as if the 
smoke of the city reached its long arm far over green 
stretches and cool woodland, cloaking Nature with the 
garment of industry. 

Little ’Dolph sat forward, hat tossed to the floor, cigar 
ashes strewn over it like snow. He had smoked inces¬ 
santly from the moment the car shot past the hedge sur¬ 
rounding the Cleeburg place. He had smoked with brow 
furrowed and teeth chewing on the butt of his weed, con¬ 
centrating so intensely that for the first time in years it 
failed to circle from corner to corner of the friendly 
mouth. He was worried—and about Gloria. What had 
got her last night? What had brought the fever to her 
eyes and that desperate grip to her fingers? What had 
made her cry, with long sobs like a child’s when his arm 
went round her? Wasn’t like her. Not a bit. He’d 
never seen her like that, didn’t know how to handle it. 

Overwork must be the answer. She’d been at it for 
six years seeing results. And before that God knew how 
many without seeing them! He recalled the poor little 
starved thing she was when first those eyes with the 
strange glow back of them had begged for a chance. 
Since that chance had been hers she hadn’t stopped, not 
for a minute. And how she had mounted! For a second 

his look of distress vanished in a broad grin of pride. 

182 


THE BACK DROP 


183 


Gloria had the divine fire, whatever that might be. The 
light of it had always been in her soul but his was the 
satisfaction of having kindled it to flame. He had found 
in her the instrument to express all the seething love of 
beauty his unbeautiful body harbored. He could not 
have put it into words but the consciousness was there, 
a vital thing. 

He looked out anxiously at the hazy September land¬ 
scape. Yes, must be overwork! If it had been any¬ 
thing else, she’d have told him. Dashed like hysteria, 
that breakdown last night! Give her a long vacation 
next summer, that’s what he’d do. He’d close her in the 
spring and take her abroad when he went to clinch those 
English contracts. 

Having reached the only decision possible in view of 
present demands on her, he settled back, applied a light 
to a final cigar and puffed peacefully until they pulled 
up at his office in the same building as the theater. 

Toward four-thirty she telephoned that she was feel¬ 
ing much better and laughed at the relief in his voice. 
If he worried about her that way, she’d give a perfectly 
rotten performance to-night! 

But in spite of her chaffing, Cleeburg, going to her 
dressing-room at seven, caught her unawares with head 
drooping into her hands and a look of utter dejection 
about the slim shoulders. She lifted both quickly as he 
entered and smiled up at him. He peered at the heavy 
blue smudges under her eyes. 

“Won’t need much make-up, will I?” she laughed, in 
quick response to the look. “You see, I’m trying to put 
the grease-paint men out of business.” 


184 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“What is it?” He pulled a chair close to the dressing- 
table. It was higher than hers and so brought their 
faces on a level. “Something’s eating you. What? 
Tell me—tell your old ’Dolph.” 

She leaned over, brushed his cheek with her lips, then 
turned quickly to the mirror and dabbed the color on 
her face with the same nervous haste he had noticed the 
night before. 

“Nothing’s wrong, dear. Wait till we settle down for 
a steady run and you’ll see.” 

“It’s sure fire! Only keep an eye on that second act. 
Don’t be afraid to let go.” 

From the wings he watched the audience stream in— 
beautifully gowned women, perfectly groomed men, keen¬ 
eyed critics, his own colleagues with soft collars and 
clothes not too well pressed, here a familiar round-the- 
towner, there a merchant who took his first night sub¬ 
scription seats as religiously as his pew in church. Truly 
a motley such as only the Metropolis can produce. Little 
’Dolph’s eyes shone and his broad mouth broadened. 
Those women with their feathery fans and glittering jew¬ 
els; those men with their sleek heads and smart clothes; 
the press; the world theatrical; they constituted his court, 
this theater his kingdom. 

Only a few times since the throne had been his had he 
failed to give them what they expected of him. That 
was why to-night he saw in every pair of eyes an eager 
anticipation that was to him like strong stimulant. He 
slipped round to the front of the house as the curtain 
rose. 

All through the first act he divided attention between 


THE BACK DROP 


185 


the stage and the audience, watching the latter laugh and 
chuckle and wink and furtively wipe its eye, and nodding 
as each effect came at the right moment. When the 
lights went up he dodged backstage, not to Gloria, but to 
Brooks. 

“Great, old boy! You’ve got ’em. Just keep up that 
tempo. Feeling fit?” 

“Fine!” 

“Look out for the end of this act, won’t you,” he added 
half apologetically. 

“Thought you were coming to that,” laughed Brooks. 

“No offense, you understand.” 

But he went back to his seat wishing the big scene 
finished. He couldn’t help a twitch of uncertainty. If 
they handled it as they had at first last night it would 
fall flat as a pancake. 

Eagerly he followed every line. It was scintillant as 
sunlit ice and very thin ice at that. The throng round 
him skated over it with the actors and when Gloria’s 
scene with Brooks arrived they were, as he had proph¬ 
esied, keyed to an emotional pitch that only the limit 
of acting could satisfy. 

Then he held tight to the arms of his chair and liter¬ 
ally his breath stopped. 

Brooks came to the climax. His vibrant voice fell 
across the quiet of the house. 

“We’ve played the game, you and I,—to the finish. 
And we’ve lost. No, not lost, because this is the end we 
wanted. We’ve been a pair of gamblers, banking on 
defeat, waiting to have the game get us. Now we’re 
going to lay down our cards, admit we’re beaten, and 




186 


FOOTLIGHTS 


take what is greater than victory. You know what that 
is. I don’t have to tell you I love you—” 

Cleeburg felt the quick intake of breath, the surge 
forward, that pulsing reach of an audience. If only 
they’d play it now for all it was worth! 

Gloria pulled back and terror was in her voice. 

“No—no!” 

For a second Brooks seemed to hesitate. What in 
Sam Hill was the matter with him? Why the deuce 
didn’t he let go? 

Then suddenly his laugh went high. He strode to her. 
His arms swept out. 

She stood poised as if in resistance, the light from 
above playing over her, her eyes started up to his. One 
could feel the catch in her throat, the swaying at the 
edge of a precipice. And then the eyelids fell, the man’s 
embrace closed round her like an enveloping flame. Her 
lips went to his. 

With a deep sigh little ’Dolph subsided. The audience 
did likewise. It had them! An excited buzz, the 
crash of applause told him that. He dodged out of his 
seat and to the lobby. Nothing further was to be de¬ 
sired. “Lady Fair” had gone over with a bang. 

It was over a month later that the manager finally pre¬ 
vailed upon their leading man to week-end with them. 
He buttonholed Brooks after the performance one Sat¬ 
urday night and refused to take “no” for an answer. 

“Say, John, getting upstage? Cut your swell friends 
this week. You’re coming out with us, ain’t he 
kiddo?” 


THE BACK DROP 187 

They were standing within the stage door. Cleeburg 
linked a persuasive arm in the other man’s. 

Gloria smiled without looking directly at Brooks. She 
drew her squirrel wrap close about her and stepped out 
of the light. 

“John’s always welcome, of course. But if he has 
other plans we mustn’t interfere.” 

“You don’t say!” laughed Cleeburg. “Well, he’s go¬ 
ing to chuck any other plans and give us the pleasure of 
his society.” 

Brooks held a light to his cigarette. The flare of it 
illumined his set mouth, the line of his jaw. 

“Another time, old man. There’s a game on at the 
club to-morrow afternoon.” 

“Good! That being the case, we’ll save you money.” 
He started down the narrow alley to the street. 

Brooks looked across at Gloria. She was looking 
down, struggling with the clasp of her glove. 

“Come on,” urged Cleeburg. 

An instant more Brooks hesitated. Then his head 
went back. 

“All right, I’m with you.” And he laughed as if with 
relief. 

They stopped off for his bag. They were still using 
the open car in spite of the winds of late October. Gloria 
liked the slash of air against her face, liked to get the 
first salty whiff of the Sound. She leaned back with lids 
drooping and hands clasped loosely and was silent all 
the way. The men talked of next year’s prospects. 

“ ‘Lady Fair’ is good for next year and a season in 
London. Think I’ll let you and Gloria take it over. 


188 


FOOTLIGHTS 


She’s never had a lick at the other side/’ chuckled Clee- 
burg. “Bound to knock ’em silly.” 

Gloria spoke for the first time. 

“I wouldn’t think about London—just yet.” 

Cleeburg started at the queer note in her voice. They 
turned into the drive where willows drooped their 
branches to the ground. Beyond shone the lights of the 
rambling old house, modernized by the family who had 
owned and loved it for generations, but untouched as to 
line or grace. High ceilings, French windows, arched 
doorways, tall fireplaces—these constituted the charm of 
the estate little ’Dolph had presented to the woman who 
had given him happiness. 

Supper for two was spread before the flaming logs at 
one end of the entrance hall. In the center of the table 
stood a bowl of autumn leaves, the wild red of Gloria’s 
hair. Cleeburg pulled up another chair as the chauf¬ 
feur brought in their guest’s bag and helped him out of 
his overcoat. 

The latter stood gazing round the place with a look 
of real affection. 

“It’s good to be back,” he said with a deep breath. 

“Well, the house has been here. Your fault that you 
haven’t!” Cleeburg cocked his ear to the comforting 
pop of a champagne cork. 

“Gloria has enough of my company eight consecutive 
times a week,” smiled Brooks. 

“We missed you anyhow. Didn’t we, kiddo?” 

“Of course. Seeing you in the theater isn’t a bit like 
having you here under our own roof.” She took off 
her hat, pushing back the weight of hair as she sat 


THE BACK DROP 


189 


down beside him. “They’re distinct and separate lives.” 

“I wonder if that’s true,” Brooks put in quickly. 
“Do you really think the life of the stage can be cut 
off completely from a man’s everyday existence?” 

“Why not?” There was almost an urge in her ques¬ 
tion, a plea in her eyes. 

“I’m inclined to believe,” he answered slowly, “that 
once the theater is in a man’s blood, it colors every¬ 
thing he thinks and feels and does. He’s got to put 
so much of himself into it that it becomes an essential 
part of him.” 

“But why is that more true of the stage than of any 
other profession?” 

“Because success on the stage depends less on ex¬ 
ecutive ability than on sincerity. It’s swaying that 
crowd out there that counts.” He made a sweeping ges¬ 
ture of his long, thin hand. “And they know counterfeit 
when it’s handed them.” 

“You said it,” agreed Cleeburg. “Make a business of 
acting and you make a failure.” 

“Lord,” laughed Brooks, “here I am telling Gloria 
something she knows instinctively. Never saw a 
woman so charged with the power to make people feel.” 
He stopped abruptly. 

Gloria had been gazing into her glass as if into a 
crystal. She set it down and the next words came as 
though she did not want to say them. 

“If that’s so—I guess you’re right. I do live every 
thought and emotion of every part I play. I suppose 
that’s why they call us temperamental.” Her full sen¬ 
sitive lips curved in a half-smile. “You don’t need tern- 





190 FOOTLIGHTS 

perament to sell stocks and bonds or argue a case in 
court.” 

“I beg your pardon,” corrected Brooks. “A lawyer 
often has to be a darned fine actor. I know, because I 
started out to be one.” 

“What’s that?” grinned his host. 

“Fact! I haven’t made it generally known. It’s too 
funny even to make a good press story. But I was ad¬ 
mitted to the bar before the stage got me.” 

“Well, I’ll be—!” Little ’Dolph’s fork halted in its 
hurried trip upward. 

Gloria pushed her plate aside and leaned farther over 
the table, eager interest warming her eyes. Brooks 
brought his round to meet them. Sitting there with the 
flames flickering over tawny hair and smoky gray dress, 
she seemed somehow part of them. 

“Tell us how it happened, John.” 

“Oh, there’s no story strung to it. I’d done stuff each 
year in college theatricals and the last year we took our 
show on tour. I got the bug and when an honest-to-God 
manager offered me a real job I fell for it.” 

“Have you ever wanted to go back to law?” 

“If I did,” his thin lips twisted, “they’d think it too 
much of a joke to take me seriously.” 

He said it with rather a grim smile and looking at 
Gloria. She twisted round in her chair, away from him. 
For a moment silence fell, broken only by little ’Dolph’s 
apparent enjoyment of his supper. 

A gale banged against the windows trying to break 
its way in. Gloria got up, went over and drew aside 
the curtain. Brooks followed. 


THE BACK DROP 191 

“I’d love to be out in it!” Her voice throbbed. 
Night shadows, beckoning, fell across her face. 

“It would never let you come back.” 

“What a wonderful fight, though, trying to conquer 
it!” 

“Do you think you could?” 

“Yes. I think determination can conquer anything— 
even oneself.” 

“If one could be sure of that.” He looked down at 
the full lips that trembled a little, at the eyes with 
flames back of them, and walked back to Cleeburg. 
“Think I’ll turn in, old man.” 

Half an hour later Cleeburg stopped at the door of his 
wife’s room on the way to his own. She was letting 
down her hair. It fell like a loosened mane over neck 
and shoulders. He took a deep breath, more of wonder 
than any other emotion. She turned, saw him and got 
suddenly to her feet. 

“Have you seen what a night it is, ’Dolph?” 

She opened the French windows. A gale of dead 
leaves flung itself into the room. She lifted her face, 
pulled her purple silk kimono closer and stepped 
cn the balcony. He tried to halt her with a warning 
against catching cold. She laughed and beckoned to him. 

Black clouds raced across the moon. Trees dashed 
against the house with all the impotence of human effort 
against the walls of Destiny. There was no rain. The 
wind leaped up and drove Nature before it, a mocking 
god bent on destruction. 

“By godfrey, if you could only get that on the stage!” 
whistled Cleeburg. 


192 


FOOTLIGHTS 


Gloria said nothing. Her face was still lifted, lips 
apart. Her arms darted out so that the long kimona 
sleeves spread like wings. Her whole body was poised 
as if for flight. 

Cleeburg stepped back and looked at her. 

She was part of the storm-torn night. Something 
about the abandon of the scene frightened him. 

“Come in, honey, won’t you? Catch your death if 
you stay out like this.” 

Her arms dropped. She turned and followed him in¬ 
doors. But opening his own window a while later he 
saw her slim silhouette outlined against hers, upright 
with the dusky light of a lamp behind her. 

The next day at their noon breakfast he asked what 
time she had gone to bed. 

“I don’t know. The night was so fascinating, I stayed 
up with it until day came.” She looked as if she had 
not slept. 

Cleeburg lit a prodigiously long cigar, twirled it be¬ 
tween his lips and settled back benignly in an armchair 
by the fire. 

“Well, children, I’m here for the afternoon. Drive 
over to the club or do whatever you like. Little ’Dolph’s 
going to get busy doing nothing.” 

He reached over without altering his position of solid 
comfort and picked at random one of the Sunday papers 
piled on the table beside him. His broad face was suf¬ 
fused with a look of utter peace and relaxation. Even 
the ever-active cigar suspended activities. 

Gloria’s lips touched his forehead. 

“We’ll go for a walk—back at four-thirty for tea.” 


THE BACK DROP 


193 


His eyes went after her the length of the foyer to a 
side door opening on the gravel walk—Gloria in dull 
green sport coat and tarn, a fur piece swung carelessly 
from one shoulder; and the tall well-knit man in knick¬ 
erbockers whose elastic step so easily fell in with hers. 
Had they followed farther they would have seen two 
people tramping in silence along a country road strewn 
with leaves that faded from green to mottled dead brown 
under a sullen sky. They would have marveled at the 
set look of the man’s mouth, the quivering of the wom¬ 
an’s. Those sympathetic prominent eyes of his, always 
seeking the most beautiful way to simulate human emo¬ 
tion, would have clouded with question had they read the 
pain in both pairs that stared straight along the road 
without meeting. 

Half a mile or so the two walked and then abruptly 
the man turned. 

“I tried to avoid it, Gloria.” 

“I know.” 

“But he took the matter out of my hands. You 
saw that.” 

“Yes.” 

“I could see he was hurt because I hadn’t been out 
this year. And little ’Dolph isn’t the sort of man you 
can hurt.” 

“N)o.” 

“We both know that, don’t we?” 

She looked up at him without answer. Tears stood 
in her eyes. 

He turned his from them and his lips went tighter. 

“He’s the finest that walks in shoe leather,” he added. 


194 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“I told him that the night we came in from the road. 
But I was telling it more to myself than to him. John, 
I felt just knowing that you—that you cared, was dis¬ 
loyal to him.” 

“I wouldn’t have let you know it, Gloria. I was 
determined never to suggest it by so much as a word. 
Then when you went smash at the theater the day be¬ 
fore we came in, I—somehow I didn’t have to tell you, 
did I?” 

“No.” It was a whisper. 

“I want you to believe I couldn’t be anything but 
square with little ’Dolph. You do, don’t you?” 

“Yes.” 

“Why, even on the stage, I feel I haven’t the right 
to take you in my arms. And I must have shown it in 
some way or other. He noticed the difference at the 
dress rehearsal.” 

She walked on silently at his side. 

“But I’m glad you know. Don’t blame me for that. 
It’s the biggest, finest thing in my life, a thing I can’t 
help. I wouldn’t be human—” 

“We must never mention it again, John,” she broke in 
and her voice came throbbing as it had the night before. 
“We can’t help it, just as you say. But we must keep 
it locked up tight, so that it will harm no one—not even 
ourselves. We owe that to him.” 

“Yes. I’d made up my mind to that.” 

“You mustn’t see me away from the theater. You 
musn’t come out here any more.” 

“I dare say it’s better that way.” 

Her eyes traveled along the leaf-strewn road, then 


THE BACK DROP 


195 


up to the sulky sky. And because they were not seeing 
quite clearly she stumbled and almost fell across a fallen 
trunk. 

The man’s arm went round her, holding the slim 
body a moment. Then with a conscious tightening of 
muscles he drew it away and plunged on without a glance 
at her. 

Presently he turned and in the look he gave her was 
a sort of desperate pleading. 

“Is there any harm in telling you just once, Gloria, 
what you mean to me? I’ve been telling it to myself so 
long.” 

“I—I don’t think you’d better. I—I don’t believe I 
could listen.” 

He looked down. Her eyes, struck with terror, went 
up to his. 

“Please—don’t.” 

“It’s all right. I won’t.” 

They came to a trail through the woods. 

“Shall we take this back?” She turned into it. 

He reached up and broke a last branch of red leaves 
that trickled like blood from a dying tree, and handed it 
to her. 

“Have you noticed how intensely bright this live stuff 
looks when everything around it is dead or dying?” 

Little ’Dolph a mile or so distant, dozed by the fire 
with cigar still sidling from the corner of his mouth. His 
dreams were hazy and disjointed. But Gloria as he had 
seen her on the balcony the night before drifted through 
them. The howling night swept by, tearing at silken 
robe and wild hair. She seemed to sway with it. The 


196 


FOOTLIGHTS 


clouds descended. He had a vague sense of effort to 
reach out, to hold her, that breathless catch at the heart 
of nightmare. Then suddenly he lost sight of her. A 
distant crash and he saw the clouds sweep her up and— 
while he stood rooted—carry her away. 

He sat up with a gasp. The cigar fell from his lips. 
His heart thumped madly. 

“What a shame! The banging of the screen door 
wakened him!” It was Gloria’s voice and she was com¬ 
ing toward him. 

He gave a great sigh of relief. 

“By godfrey, I’m glad to be awake! Come here, 
kiddo. Want to make sure I’ve still got you!” 

She whisked the branch of scarlet leaves across his face. 

“Just had a dream that took you right out of my 
young life and I couldn’t catch up!” 

She pulled off tarn and coat, swung to the arm of his 
chair. 

“Can’t lose me, Dolphy dear!” 

“By-the-way,” remarked Brooks, as Gloria served 
tea, “please don’t mind if I beat it back to town to-night. 
I’ve got to see my lawyer at ten a. m., and you won’t be 
going in until to-morrow noon, will you?” 

“Yes, I do mind, by George!” came from ’Dolph. 
“We get you out here once in a blue moon and you can’t 
even stand it for one day. What do you want with a 
lawyer anyhow? Hold on to your pocket and attend 
to your own legal affairs.” 

“But if John has to go in, dear, we mustn’t keep him.” 

Brooks was looking down at the cap twirling between 
his hands. 


THE BACK DROP 


197 


“See, old man! Your wife understands.” 

“All right! ” Cleeburg got up, peeved, and went to the 
bell. “What time do you want the car? I’ll drive you 
to the station. But hanged if I don’t think you pay 
us a mighty poor compliment!” 

He still showed annoyance when Brooks went up to 
pack his bag. 

“What’s got him, anyhow?” he put to Gloria. 
“Damned if I ask him again!” 

All the way to the station he chewed on his cigar, re¬ 
sponding laconically when his guest tried to make con¬ 
versation. The little manager had a peculiar racial 
pride that John Brooks unwittingly had speared. 

“Good enough to hand out his weekly stipend; good 
enough to give him his living!” kept spinning round the 
active brain. “But not good enough any more to sit with 
at the table! Prefers his Fifth Avenue cronies for that.” 

As the car stopped, Brooks swung down, reached out 
a hand. 

“Thanks, old man. Had a great time!” 

“The hell you had!” said Cleeburg. 

He drove back still turning over his guest’s deser¬ 
tion and madder every minute. When the car pulled 
up he sprang out, intent upon talking the whole thing 
over with Gloria. He crossed the veranda, opened the 
front door. 

She was sitting in the chair he had occupied before the 
fire. Her body was bent forward, head lowered. He 
went nearer. She was stripping the branch she had 
brought in of its blood-red leaves. One by one she broke 
them off and dropped them into the fire. And her eyes 
never left them as they curled up and shriveled to a crisp. 


CHAPTER III 


W E who sit in the orchestra of life are inclined to 
smile, to lend willing ear to whispers of scandal 
from behind the footlights. Perhaps the standards are 
a bit less rigid on the surface. But so are emotions. 
They cannot be hidden as the rest of the world has 
learned to hide them but must be brought forth on the 
stage nightly that we at play may know the joy of 
laughter and tears for which our own lives do not exact 
payment. 

Those twin giants, Opportunity and Propinquity, stand 
guard at the stage door, ushering in with a flourish each 
newcomer. Human fraility is their stock in trade, the 
theater their most satisfactory market. For a year they 
had stalked the steps of Gloria Cromwell and John 
Brooks. For a year they had appeared at unexpected 
moments, working in absolute harmony, waiting with 
tongue in cheek for the unguarded second when the set 
line of the man’s mouth would relax; when his lips would 
tell her what his arms had not yet made known; when 
the woman’s voice with its strange thrilling note would 
meet his and confess. 

And they had been cheated. The unguarded second 
had come on the dingy stage of a small town theater 
during the tour of “Lady Fair”—with Gloria crum¬ 
pling at his feet and his arms going round her in a sudden 
desperate clasp. Alone in her dressing-room, her opening 

eyes had met the look in his like a shaft of light struck 

198 


THE BACK DROP 


199 


through blindness. His whispered “Gloria,” the strain¬ 
ing of her close as if to hold her always; the swift 
loosening of that hold; the step backward; the break¬ 
ing of their locked gaze. 

If love could be classified—and of course it cannot— 
I wonder how we would label love that goes quietly 
on its way without hysteria, without big scenes, with 
no effort to grasp that to which it has no right; knowing 
that it must endure, even while it can never find fulfill¬ 
ment. 

’Dolph Cleeburg, with round eyes constantly in search 
of new angles on old conflicts, did not dream that daily 
in his own home, in his own theater, those eyes were look¬ 
ing upon drama more vibrant than any he could see in a 
mimic world—the quiet tragedy of passion which in daily 
contact with its object, yet soldierwise faces its own death 
knell. 

He took note of nothing but the crowds that jammed 
the theater. He planned gaily for next season’s tour, 
to be topped by triumphal entry into London. 

“You and John will be a knock-out over there,” he told 
Gloria, eyes popping. “Even if I am sore at him, I’ve 
got to admit he knows his job.” 

Gloria looked out at the hills, shorn of all but bare- 
limbed trees and covered with a fine frost, the gray beard 
of coming winter. It was their final week-end in the 
country, later than they usually remained. But she had 
wanted it so. 

“Have you spoken to John about going?” she asked. 

“Not since he was here. Haven’t spoken to him at 

all.” 


200 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“Big baby!” she laughed. 

“Well, he hurt my feelings. I can’t forget the way 
he gave us the go-by.” 

“Then—then why send him abroad?” It came 
with a sharp intensity. “We can look the ground 
over when we cross this summer and engage an Eng¬ 
lishman.” 

“Not on your life! You and John pull too well to¬ 
gether. The pair of you will give ’em a taste of real 
American pep.” 

She hesitated, eyes riveted to the vista of cold hills. 
Suddenly she wheeled round, one hand grasping the drape 
that bordered the French window. The next words 
came like a catapult. 

“ ’Dolph, don’t book me for London! I’m not going! 
I don’t want to play there.” 

“You don’t—” Cleeburg’s jaw dropped in sheer 
amazement. 

“No” she raced on. “I’ve been thinking about it—a lot. 
I don’t want to go.” 

“But why?” 

“I’ve never been over. I don’t know any one—” 

“That won’t take long. Why, they’ll be giving you 
a rush the day after you land. And there’s John for 
company if you get homesick.” 

“Yes, I know. But”—she turned once more to the 
stripped hills, then back with something like terror in 
her eyes—“but it’s you I need, ’Dolph. I don’t want 
to be so far away from you.” 

He got out of the chair that hugged his merry fire, 
went to her, laid a hand that trembled over hers. 




THE BACK DROP 


201 


“Y’mean that, kiddo? After six years of me, do 1 
honest-to-God matter as much as that?” 

Her hand curled up and over his, holding it tight. 

“Oh, ’Dolph, if you knew how much I need you! 
More now than ever before! Don’t send me away— 
don’t!” 

Cleeburg’s eyes went up to hers. Hers went down 
before them. 

“By godfrey!” he said finally, brushing a hand across 
his eyes. “Think I’m crying. Ain’t ashamed of it, 
either.” 

She did not answer. 

“You, too!” He peered under her lowered lids. 
“Fine pair of slushes, eh? Well, I want to tell you right 
now, honey—ain’t a knock-out I ever had that made a 
hit with me like this does.” 

She brought a smile to her silent lips. 

“All I’m looking for is the best thing for you,” he 
went on. “You’re the main guy in this combination. 
I’m just the old back drop like I told you. If you ain’t 
going to be happy in London, you don’t go—that’s all. 
But think it over! I’d like to see my little girl make the 
Britishers sit up. We’ll give them the once-over this 
summer. Then you can decide.” 

The memory of that afternoon with Gloria against the 
sunless winter twilight begging not to be sent away from 
him, was to little ’Dolph like some treasure one keeps in 
a vault—to be taken out, gazed upon and locked away 
again. Sometimes in the rear office that was his sanc¬ 
tum, when things had gone wrong or a lull came in the 



202 


FOOTLIGHTS 


day’s activities, he would sink back in his chair, a smile 
slowly radiating his plain features, and before him would 
come a woman with arms outstretched toward him as if 
for protection against all the world. The wonder of it 
made him glow, sent the worries of business scurrying 
into the background. 

He was seated so one Saturday afternoon between the 
matinee and evening performances, after having rounded 
up the tour for next season. The immortal cigar circled 
contentedly and he lolled back, contemplating a sweep 
of intense blue sky—but seeing rather the Long Island 
hills against a somber one—when his secretary brought 
word that John Brooks was outside and wanted to see him. 

Cleeburg nodded. 

“Lo, stranger,” he said a bit sheepishly as the latter 
came in. “Time you showed up.” 

“I’ve been trying to see you for the past month,” 
Brooks informed him, throwing hat and coat on a chair 
and pulling another close to Cleeburg’s desk, “but you 
passed me up every time we met. Never mind, old man,” 
he added with a short smile as the other started to lay 
down his cigar, “I know why. You were sore at me— 
and with reason. We’ll let it go at that. I’m sorry.” 

“So’m I,” grinned little ’Dolph and sat back again. 
“When I like a fellow, I like him. Enemies can’t hurt 
my feelings. Now what’s on your mind?” 

Brooks got up as suddenly as he had sat down, took 
a turn the length of the room, and came back. 

“ ’Dolph”—he began somewhat awkwardly and 
stopped. “ ’Dolph,—when this season closes I’m going 





THE BACK DROP 203 

to ask you to get some one else for the road. I can’t go 
out next year.” 

For the space of a breath the manager said nothing. 
He sat blinking uncertainly as if not sure of his ears. 
Then he jerked forward. 

“What’s that?” 

“I know it seems a rotten trick to pull. But I want 
you to take my word, ’Dolph, that I wouldn’t do it if 
I hadn’t justifiable reasons.” 

“Am I to understand that you’re handing me your 
notice?” 

“Yes, old man.” 

“You’re notifying me that you quit?” 

“Yes.” 

“When?” 

“When we close. If you can let me off before then—” 

Cleeburg’s laugh cut the sentence like an ax. It 
held—sharp, contemptuous. Then his teeth shut on his 
cigar until the end broke off in his mouth. 

“Who’s offering to star you?” came tersely. 

A flash from the other’s eye answered the arraign¬ 
ment. But his reply was low and quiet. 

“Nobody.” 

“Since when did you take me for an easy mark?” 

“ ’Dolph,” Brooks began, “you and I have been on the 
level with each other always. I’ve played fair and I’m 
going to keep on playing fair. I’m quitting for reasons 
I can’t make clear to you now. You’ll have to take my 
word for it.” 

“The hell I will!” Cleeburg shot out. “This has 
been coming a long time. I saw it when you were in the 


204 


FOOTLIGHTS 


country. Swelled head—that’s the answer! Didn’t 
think they could do it to you. But those society snobs 
have got you thinking you’re Edwin Booth.” 

The other man’s thin lips opened. His eyes narrowed 
with a look almost of menace. Then in silence he picked 
up a flexible paper cutter and bent it slowly in two. 
There was a snap. He chucked the pieces on the desk. 

“That’s a damned injustice, Cleeburg. Wish you 
hadn’t said it. But it won’t change matters any. I’m 
quitting.” 

“Look here, sorry if I was hasty. You hit me hard 
—that’s all! Sit down. Let’s talk it over—cards on 
the table. What’s the big idea?” 

“I told you.” 

“No, you didn’t. Somebody’s after you. Somebody’s 
going long on the golden promise stuff. I ain’t a fool. 
That’s plain as the nose on your face. Now who is it? 
Kane? Coghlan? Surprised they didn’t try to get you 
long ago.” 

“They did. I turned them down.” 

Beads of perspiration had gathered on Cleeburg’s head. 
He pulled a handkerchief from his coat pocket and 
mopped mechanically. 

“Anything wrong downstairs?” 

“N-no.” 

The manager looked up sharply. “If there’s trouble, 
just spill it and I’ll settle things to your satisfaction.” 

“Nothing wrong, old man.” 

“Then look here, let’s get down to cases. If it’s busi¬ 
ness, we’ll talk business. You’ve got to stay. Gloria 
can’t get along without you.” 


THE BACK DROP 


205 


Brooks’ eyes shifted to the window. 

“I don’t want any trouble for her,” little ’Dolph pur¬ 
sued. “I’ve got you billed together next season. Her 
public looks for you both. I’ll meet any offer you got. 
Yes—and top it.” 

Brooks turned back slowly, shook his head. 

Cleeburg sprang up. 

“Well, get me straight—will you? You’re tied up 
tight. And I won’t let you off. Now I’ll just about 
show you where you stand.” His thumb went down on 
the press-button in his desk as if it were going through 
the top. “Bring me Mr. Brooks’ contract,” he told his 
secretary. 

Brooks walked over to the window. His hands were 
shaking. His face was dead white. He stood staring 
out with jaws set and the look of a man going into battle. 

But Cleeburg saw nothing of that. His own hands 
opened and shut spasmodically. He tramped steadily 
back and forth the space of his desk, muttering to him¬ 
self like the rumble of storm. Under the puzzled ques¬ 
tion that brought brows together was a frown of fury. 

When the contract was handed him, he rustled 
quickly through the pages, scanning the closely typed 
sheets, studying it clause for clause. 

“No, sir! I’ve got you!” he ended triumphantly. 

“ ’Dolph, I’ve never asked favors—not from you nor 
any other man. But I ask you now to let me off with¬ 
out any kick. You know me well enough to realize I 
wouldn’t, without some good reason.” 

“Then I’ve got to know what that reason is.” 

“I can’t tell you.” 


206 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“Not the ghost of an excuse, yet you want me to let 
you quit without a murmur! What d’you think I am?” 

“I think you’re man enough not to try to hold me, 
contract or no contract.” 

“That won’t work! Here it is, black on white.” 
He banged down the contract. “No loophole for three 
years! It’s ironclad.” 

“Then I’ll have to break it,” the man at the window 
said quietly. 

Cleeburg went close to him. For some unaccount¬ 
able reason this man calmly breaking all rules of the 
game, made him feel apologetic. An outraged sense of 
justice added to his fury. 

“Oh, you will—will you? Well, we’ll just look after 
that. Whatever you’ve got up your sleeve, Brooks, it’s 
a skunk trick. And I won’t stand for it, d’you hear? 
I’ll stop you from tying up with anybody else. S’help 
me, I will!” 

“I’m not tying up with anybody else. I’m quitting— 
for good.” 

“What?” 

“That’s why I want you to release me.” 

Cleeburg gave the same hard contemptuous laugh as 
before. 

“What’re you trying to put over?” 

“Nothing.” 

“You mean to tell me you’re chucking a profession 
when you’re right on top?” 

“I’m going back to the law—if the world hasn’t too 
keen a sense of humor to accept a one-time actor as a 
lawyer.” 


THE BACK DROP 


207 


The manager gave him one long uncomprehending 
look, then flung back his head and roared. It was 
laughter not pleasant to listen to. Brooks stood it si¬ 
lently for a stretch while his hands twitched. Then his 
eyes flared as if fire were behind them. Still he did not 
turn from the window. 

“Let’s end this, will you? We’re not getting any¬ 
where. And I’ve given you my ultimatum.” 

“Well, I’ll give you mine.” Cleeburg had lost all 
count of words. The bruise of bucking against a stone 
wall had made him see red. “You stick to Gloria or I’ll 
make it so hot for you that they’ll hoot you out of this 
town! That’s the only way to handle—swine!” He 
broke off, turned on his heel, went back to the desk. 
Suddenly he leaned across it. “What the hell do you 
want, anyhow?” 

Brooks came round like a pivot. The other man’s 
breath held at the look on his face. “I want your wife! 
Now for God’s sake throw me out, will you!” 

It was quite still in the room. Even the words were 
spoken in something less than a whisper. When they 
had come there was no outward intimation that a man 
had pulled down a mountain crashing about his head. 

Cleeburg’s hands clenched where they lay on the desk. 
He stared across it without changing position. The blood 
mounted to his wet forehead, then receded, leaving it 
gray white. His face was that of a man ready to kill. 
Then he shook his head a little vaguely, felt for the chair 
behind him, pulled it up to the desk. But he did not 
sink into it. He caught hold of the arm and stood so, 
steadying himself. 


208 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“Nothing on God’s earth would have made me tell 
you, ’Dolph,” Brooks went on hoarsely. “I thought I 
could make you let me off without a word. But you 
can see for yourself—” He paused—then abruptly: 
“Do you know what it means to take her in my arms, 
loving her? Do you know what it means to want an¬ 
other man’s wife and feel her lips on yours every night?’’ 

Cleeburg moistened his own. They opened and closed. 
His nails dug into the varnish of the chair. His eyes, 
so long unseeing, visualized in a flash the scene they had 
gazed upon so often—Gloria in the arms of the man fac¬ 
ing him, himself urging them to more intense expression, 
more abandon of love. Like a raging animal the fight¬ 
ing male leaped up in him—then subsided, knowing it 
had to fight only itself. He met the straight look. In 
turn it met his. And he knew that set mouth had spoken 
truth, clean, uncompromising; could not have spoken at 
all if it had been otherwise. He groped uncertainly,— 
spoke at last half in fear, the first thought that had 
seized him. 

“Does—does she—know?” 

John Brooks looked into the tortured face and lied 
without hesitation. 

“No.” 

“You mean—she hasn’t even guessed?” 

“No. And I don’t want her to.” 

“That’s why you kept away from us?” 

“Yes.” 

“That’s why you went back to town last time you were 
with us.” 


“Yes.” 


THE BACK DROP 


209 


“And I thought you were a damned snob!” A hand 
that trembled came across the desk top. “Sorry I said 
what I did. Pardon!” 

The other made an attempt to treat it lightly. Two 
shaking hands clasped. 

“No trouble about getting off now, eh?” 

“I—I’d like to eat dirt for the way I talked to you,” 
said Cleeburg. 

“Forget it! Your assumption was the only logical 
one. Another man would be after me with a gun for 
what I’ve told you.” 

“Look here,” little ’Dolph stumbled on, “I—I’ll star 
you myself.” 

“No,” Brooks smiled a bit grimly. “I’m quitting— 
for good.” 

’Dolph Cleeburg’s eyes, comprehending now, took in 
the drawn face and tired look of the man who had fought 
a losing battle—and won. And some strange click of 
memory brought simultaneously the same look of despera¬ 
tion in another face. Where had he seen it? When? 
Why did it haunt him? He sat down, picked up the 
halves of the paper cutter and tried to piece them to¬ 
gether. Suddenly they rattled to the desk. Gloria! 
Gloria’s white face that night after he had put them 
through their paces, the night she had clung to him, the 
night of her strange outburst of hysteria. Gloria’s face 
when he suggested sending them abroad! Gloria’s face 
a dozen times since! 

His gaze moved slowly toward the door, straining as a 
man stares through the dark. His thumb pressed the 
button on his desk, not as before, but mechanically. He 


210 


FOOTLIGHTS 


waited without moving. Yet his secretary stood in the 
doorway fully half a minute before he spoke. 

“Find out if Miss Cromwell is in her dressing-room. 
Say I’d like to see her here.” 

Brooks took a quick step toward him. 

“What do you want her for.” 

“To tell her you’re quitting.” 

“That’s not necessary. See here, ’Dolph, let’s drop 
it. You and I understand each other.” 

“No harm telling her, is there?” 

The other man stepped back and sat down with a ges¬ 
ture that told the futility of argument. He, too, sat 
with eyes on the door. 

Neither spoke. Little ’Dolph’s face seemed to sag. 
The skin fell heavily round the jaws. The eyes had a 
vague, helpless look. He took out his handkerchief, 
folded it carefully and put it back in his pocket. He 
got up, changed the position of a chair, came back to 
the desk. 

“ ’Dolph, what are you going to do?” Brooks brought 
out at last. 

“Just tell her,” he repeated. 

The door opened and Gloria came in, dressed for the 
street. 

“I’ve been waiting for you to take me to dinner,” she 
told Cleeburg. “What’s kept you, dear?” 

He got up, pushed his chair in her direction. 

“News,” came uncertainly after a second’s pause. 
“Rotten news. John’s leaving us.” 

The bomb was flung. He stood peering into her face, 
waiting for its answer rather than that of her lips. 


THE BACK DROP 


211 


There would be surprise—there must be that! And 
after the first start of amazement, a protest. And in¬ 
dignation! The outburst of the actress about to lose 
the support on which she depends. His hands clenched. 
That she might not see, he clasped them behind him. 
God, let her know the anxiety natural under the circum¬ 
stances ! Let her rise up determined to hold this man to 
his business contract! Let her threaten with all the im¬ 
personal fury he himself had shown! Let her prove 
that to her John Brooks was merely part of her profes¬ 
sional life! That as such she would not let him 
go! 

He waited while his silent lips moved in prayer. 

Gloria’s first swift glance was to Brooks. His linked 
with hers. Her fingers locked and unlocked. Twice 
she opened her lips without speech, then turned back to 
Cleeburg. 

“Has anything happened? There—there’s been no 
trouble between you, has there?” was all she said. 

“Of course not,” Brooks put in quickly. “I’ve told 
’Dolph I’m quitting for good. That’s all there is to it.” 

Little ’Dolph did not take his eyes from her. Now it 
would come—surely. She had been too amazed, too 
taken back before. He waited for the throbbing voice 
to answer. 

“You—you’re leaving the stage?” it asked too quietly. 

“Yes,” Cleeburg plunged in. “He’s quitting us—cold. 
Get that? He’s leaving us in the lurch. What do you 
make of it?” 

With a look of sudden fear, Brooks sprang up. 
“See here, ’Dolph—” 


212 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“John must have some good reason — 55 

“Do you know what it is?” 

She glanced quickly from one to the other. Something 
in both faces brought her, too, to her feet. “Why 
should I?” 

“You didn’t seem surprised when I told you.” 

“I am surprised, of course.” 

“Then why in God’s name don’t you make him give 
you some explanation?” 

“Hasn’t he given you one?” she asked very low. 

“Yes! Do you want to hear it?” 

“ ’Dolph!” the other man fairly leaped at him. 

“Wait a minute!” Cleeburg stretched out a hand. 
His throat was so parched, he could scarcely bring out 
the words. “Wait a minute! I’ve got to go through 
with this. I’ve got to know.” He turned to Gloria. 
“You asked if anything happened. The biggest thing 
has happened since you came into the room. I sent for 
you to tell you John was going. That means you lose 
the best support you ever had or will have. It knocked 
me out completely. And you take it without a murmur. 
You’ve got him under contract, yet you don’t make the 
ghost of an effort to hold him.” 

Gloria’s voice shook as she answered. 

“Why should I try to hold him against his will?” 

“Why wouldn’t you put up the fight of your life to 
hold him—unless you’re afraid to?” 

“Afraid to?” 

“Let’s drop this!” came swift and sharp from Brooks. 

“I can’t—I’ve got to know,” Cleeburg broke in piti¬ 
fully. Then to Gloria like a man pleading for life: 


THE BACK DROP 213 

“You didn’t want me to book you and John for London. 
You preferred not to go. That’s a fact, ain’t it?” 

“Yes.” 

“Was it—was it because you didn’t want to be over 
there with him—alone?” 

She stared as he put the question—stared into the eyes 
that were like a bleeding animal’s. 

“I didn’t want to go without you. You know that.” 

He saw her mouth quiver at the corners and her teeth 
hold the lower lip. And all her nervousness that 
night of the dress rehearsal swept before him in tor¬ 
turing detail. He shook his head helplessly. He 
grasped the arm of a chair as he had once before and 
steadied himself. Haltingly the words he had known he 
must speak came at last. 

“Why wouldn’t you go without me? Was that—was 
it because you knew what I know now—that he loves 
you?” 

She gave a start. He saw her eyes fly to the other 
man’s. There was nothing of indignation in that look, 
nothing of anger. Terror—yes—and question! But 
back of both a glow—the instinctive look of the one 
woman to the one man that will live as long as the 
world. Because unconscious, it was all the revelation the 
man who watched her needed. A sort of groping won¬ 
der at his blindness seized him. Then little ’Dolph sank 
into the chair and, like a candle snuffed, hope went out 
of his eyes. 

What she said as she turned back to him was merely 
a veil drawn across thought to hide its nakedness. 

She went over, laid a hand on his shoulder and looked 


214 FOOTLIGHTS 

* 

into the poor haggard face that had not learned, as have 
women, to conceal its suffering. Her own was as white. 

“ ’Dolph, dear—whatever John has told you, I want 
you to believe that he’s never, by so much as a word, 
been disloyal to you.” 

He patted her hand and tried to smile. 

“I know that, kiddo. It’s all right. Honest it is.” 

“Don’t blame him. We’ve been together so much. 
The theater is so different from any other kind of life. 
It’s so—so intimate.” 

“ ’Dolph has been one hundred per cent there.” 
Brooks squared his shoulders as he spoke and went 
toward the door. “Another man would have put a bul¬ 
let through my head.” 

“You—you’ll go on being his friend, ’Dolph?” 

“Don’t worry, kiddo.” 

“You and I will have each other.” Her voice broke. 

His empty eyes came round to her. 

“You’re going to stay on with me?” 

“Of course I am.” 

“Y’mean it?” 

“Of course I do.” She looked to Brooks and held out 
her hand. “Good-by, John.” 

He came over and took it and held it for a moment— 
tight. 

“Good-by, Gloria. I’ll be leaving town next week, if 
’Dolph’s willing to have an understudy take my place 
from to-night on. I’m not likely to see you again.” 

Their eyes met and managed to smile. Then Gloria 
looked away. Something in her throat was fluttering 
like a wild thing. 


THE BACK DROP 


215 


When she looked back the door had closed. 

“You’re all right, honey,” Cleeburg murmured huskily. 

Three hours later he let himself into the quiet office, 
switched on the light and went to the desk. A broken 
paper knife lay near the inkstand. He picked up the 
pieces, held them together with half a smile, then let 
them drop from his hand into the waste basket. 

The chair he had pushed forward for Gloria stood as 
she had left it. He drew it over, sat down, and with 
broad mouth firm but hands that shook a little, pulled 
a sheet of foolscap toward him and took up a pen. 

The pen moved across the sheet, sometimes hesita¬ 
ting, sometimes swift as a comet. But the determined 
line of little ’Dolph’s mouth never relaxed. 

My dearest little girl: 

I’ve been thinking a lot since dinner, and when a fellow 
has sort of lost the habit of thinking about anything but his 
next show it comes hard. But don’t you jump at the con¬ 
clusion that what I’m going to say is hasty or that it ain’t 
final. For years there was a funny old feeling inside of me 
that I had something to tell the world and no way to tell 
it. I wanted to put over something on the stage that would 
sound like music or look like a beautiful painting. Scenery 
wouldn’t do it. The women I had trained couldn’t do it. 
I didn’t even know, myself, just what it was. I used to tell 
myself often I was a poor nut. Then you came along with 
that voice of yours and those eyes and the fire that hasn’t 
any name, and did it all for me. If there hadn’t ever been 
anything more for me than seeing those hopes come true, 
it would have been enough. But I’ve had you for almost 
six years. You made me happier than you know, kiddo. 
And what has a poor old dub like me ever done to expect 
more than the happiness life has already handed me through 


216 


FOOTLIGHTS 


you? Why, that’s a fortune that makes the Rockefeller mil¬ 
lions look like thirty cents. If I try to hog more, if I keep 
you from the thing you’ve got a right to, the thing you gave 
me for six years, shooting’s too good for me. 

You don’t think I could let you stay on with me, know¬ 
ing that you and John belong together, do you? And you 
do belong together. You know I always said you made a 
fine team. Why, kiddo, it would finish me. I want you to 
be happy, that’s all. And I saw to-day where that happiness 
is for you. 

I fixed it so that John couldn’t get off to-night. And I’m 
going to fix it now so that you’ll play together the rest of 
your lives. I'm sailing Monday to fix up those English con¬ 
tracts. When I come back in the fall you’re going to be 
free. No, not free, I’m wrong. I want to take you and 
John by the hands and say—Bless you, my children! 

You remember, I called myself once your old back drop. 
Well, being that is about the best thing that’s ever happened 
to me. And I’ll keep on being that if you’ll let me, until 
you quit the game. Let me go on putting you over just 
like always and I’ll be O. Iv. Don’t you worry. 

God bless you, kiddo. 

’Dolph. 

/ 

He folded the sheets without reading them, put them 
into an envelope, sealed it carefully, went downstairs 
and looked up the head usher. 

“Take this to Miss Cromwell and give it into her hands 
yourself,” he said. “And here, kid.” And he slipped 
the boy a dollar. 


TWO MASTERS 

ROMANCE 

Love is a fantasy, a dream that only sacrifice can make 
come true. The tragedy of it is not in dying, but in living 
without it. 







TWO MASTERS 


CHAPTER I 

A CROSS Bryant Park, chilled and damp under a 
gray sky emptied of stars, a man hurried. His 
overcoat collar was turned up. His soft hat was pulled 
down. His eyes between the two were dark-circled and 
deep-sunk. His feet covered the wet paths with the 
stumbling haste of one pursued. 

To the east the faint gold streaks of an autumn dawn 
cut the clouds. They reached up above the irregular 
skyline that is New York, heralding the day some min¬ 
utes after it was born. 

The man sped across Fortieth Street and mounted the 
steps of one of the few brownstone houses, relic of an 
old aristocracy, that refused to be crowded out by the 
bourgeoisie of business. He fumbled in his coat pocket, 
brought out a key, dropped it in his anxiety, finally got 
the inner door open and made his way, still stumbling, 
up the stairs. 

At an apartment on the second floor—for the house 
maintained its aloof air of aristocracy only on the out¬ 
side—he paused and squared his shoulders. His whole 
body seemed to steel itself and then, very softly, he in¬ 
serted the key and entered. 

A gentle rustle came from the room beyond and a 
trained nurse with finger against her lips met him on 
the threshold. 


220 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“She—she’s all right?” he whispered, lips twitching. 

“Sleeping.” 

“I tried to get back earlier. We rehearsed until a 
few minutes ago.” He threw hat and overcoat on a 
chair and sank into another. His head went down into 
his hands. “God, those hours, when every minute I 
thought—Miss Anderson,” he broke off, looking up to 
catch her expression, “she hasn’t taken a turn for the 
worse! She’ll pull through, won’t she?” 

She smiled, a little sadly, at the desperate, so familiar 
query. 

“She’s holding her own,” she answered with the for¬ 
mula equally familiar. 

“Can’t you tell me she’ll get well? Can’t you give 
me the assurance?” 

“No one can do that, Mr. Moore. We can only wait 
and hope.” 

She took a hesitant step toward him, hand outstretched 
to comfort. Then evidently realizing how futile such ef¬ 
fort would be, she turned and went back to her place at 
the foot of the bed that was a misty blur in the darkened 
room beyond. 

He followed, precipitately yet with scarcely the sound 
of a footfall. The room was full of shadows. A thread 
of sunlight, forcing its way between blind and window, 
crept across the floor and gradually toward the bed. But 
Frank Moore did not need its delicate finger-touch to 
illumine the face that lay so still upon the pillow. He 
knew every precious line of it, every contour, all the 
shades of modeling that made it exquisite even though 
disease had in a few short weeks pressed into a gaunt 


TWO MASTERS 


221 


mask the curves of beauty. He stood looking down at 
its stillness until a sudden broken cry came from him 
and he went quickly into the other room. 

With no shame for his man’s tears, he flung himself 
full length on the couch and gave way to the misery he 
must hide when the wistful gaze of the eyes he loved was 
on him. Long days of rehearsal, long nights of anxiety, 
had weakened his resistance. He lay shaking with all 
the pitiable helplessness of the strong man gone 
under. 

On side streets and flashing under the reflectors on 
the big twenty-four sheets along Sixth Avenue was his 
name in prominent black letters. 

Kane Theatre 
45th Street 
beginning 
November 5th 


OSWALD KANE 
Presents 
the New Drama 
“THE LAUREL WREATH” 

by 

Gaston Grisac 
Featuring 

FRANKLYN MOORE 

% 

How often they had dreamed of the day when he and 
she could look up and see that name as it stood out now, 
heralded, the featured one of the season’s big production! 



222 


FOOTLIGHTS 


How often had she pictured herself stopping to read it 
each time it loomed before them, scanning it over and 
over on her theater program, leaning beyond the rail of 
the stage box to spur him to the success that must be 
his! 

And to-night—the night that was to have been the 
greatest in their life, she would be lying there, while he— 
He sprang up, with quick stride covered the floor, back 
and forth, back and forth, like a prisoner in a cell. 

The day nurse arriving at seven, found him dazed 
and blank-eyed from sheer weakness. As one feeds a 
child, she made him swallow some steaming coffee, then 
led him without difficulty back to the couch. 

“You must rest, Mr. Moore, or you won’t be equal 
to the performance to-night.” 

“I—can’t.” 

“But if I promise to call you when Mrs. Moore 
wakes up, won’t you try to sleep a bit?” 

“I can’t, I tell you! ” 

“Please—” 

She plumped up the pillows and he fell back among 
them, exhausted. He did not sleep but a sort of numb¬ 
ness gripped him as if the blood had been drained from 
his veins. And while his body lay still, his mind moved 
with wonder. Ambition—hope—of what use? To-day 
for him, this day that was to make all the days to come, 
there was just one reality. That face in there with its 
lines of suffering, that frail body, that soul that must 
live on for him. Nothing else was worth a thought— 
nothing! All night long as he had rehearsed, perfecting 
under the subtle guidance of Oswald Kane, the minutest 



TWO MASTERS 


223 


detail of characterization, the most delicate shading of 
the difficult role he had mastered, he had been standing 
in reality at her bedside. Like a well-ordered mechan¬ 
ism he had gone through the part. But the indeter¬ 
minate something that was Franklyn Moore had been 
in that shadowy room—with her. Kane had noticed the 
lack. An anxious frown had drawn his expressive brows 
momentarily together. But he had said nothing until 
the dress rehearsal was over and the company had gone 
home to sleep in preparation for the night’s performance. 
Then he had linked his arm through Moore’s and drawn 
him into the darkness of the wings. 

“Frank, I know this is an ordeal for you. If there 
were any way of postponing the opening, I would do it. 
You know that. But it can’t be managed. We’re all 
set. They could only conclude that something was wrong 
with the play.” 

“Of course—I know. That’s all right.” 

“And, my boy, we can’t afford to let it fail because of 
this—this misfortune that has come to you. It’s on your 
shoulders. We must come through, Frank. We can’t 
stand a failure.” His anxiety was all too evident. 

“I was rotten—I know. But don’t worry—” 

“I won’t. I depend upon you, my boy, that’s all. 
And so does to-night’s success. Let me run you 
home.” 

“Thanks—no. I’d rather walk it. Want to be alone 
—you understand—pardon!” 

And he had stumbled out of the stage door into the 
new gray day. 

Now as he paced up and down, he wondered whether 



224 


FOOTLIGHTS 


it would be humanly possible to keep faith with the man 
who was giving him the opportunity to blazon his name 
to the world. Could he go through with it? Could he 
be depended upon? 

The nurse appeared in the doorway and beckoned to 
him. From the pillow a pair of eyes, so large and dark 
that there seemed no other feature in the small face, 
fastened on the door as he entered. He dropped on his 
knees, laid his head beside hers. One hand strayed 
up and stroked his thick brown hair. 

“How did it go, darling?” 

He answered with another question of greater moment. 

“Are you feeling better?” 

“Much. They gave me something to make me sleep. 
I must have slept a long time. Is it morning?” 

“Ten o’clock.” 

“Really? What time did you get in?” 

“About half-past five.” 

“How did the rehearsal go?” she repeated. 

“Fine. Kane thinks it will be a knock-out.” 

“I’m sure it will.” 

He turned his face from hers for an instant of silence. 

The nurse moved about the room, lifting the blinds 
to the sunlight, preparing it for the day. Then she came 
over to the bed. 

“As soon as I have Mrs. Moore fixed up, I’ll let you 
come back,” she said. 

“You’ll let him tell me all about it, won’t you?” pleaded 
the voice from the pillow. “I couldn’t bear it if you 
didn’t.” 

“Yes—he can stay in here until—” 


TWO MASTERS 225 

“Until he’s ready to go to the theater. Please— 
please!” 

“If you don’t wear yourself out.” 

“I won’t—I promise.” 

The big dark eyes followed him out of the room. 

He stripped off his clothes, took a cold shower and 
in clean linens tried to persuade himself that he felt re¬ 
laxed. He telephoned the doctor for a report on last 
night’s visit and was told Mrs. Moore was about the 
same. If she had gained some sleep that was decidedly 
in her favor. The doctor would be over at five and as 

f 

Mr. Moore had requested, would make arrangements to 
stay until his return from the theater. 

The small face on the pillow was lifted eagerly as 
he reappeared. Two long braids of pale gold fell over 
the shoulders and onto the white spread. He had always 
adored that pale gold hair. It intensified the dark of 
her eyes, making them almost black. It made her med¬ 
iaeval, an Elaine of poetry. He called her “Elaine” 
which after all was not so very far from her own name, 
“Helen.” 

“No, I want you here.” She pointed to the foot of the 
bed. “Where I won’t miss a word or an expression. 
Now tell me—about everything.” 

In a low voice, without stress or excitement, he related 
the incidents that always occur at a dress rehearsal. 
Props that had to be replaced at the last minute. The 
leading woman’s gowns gone wrong. The house cat 
sauntering across the stage during the big scene and its 
portent, good luck! Kane’s decision to light him with 
white instead of amber in the final act. All the little 


226 


FOOTLIGHTS 


shadings, the quaint superstitions, the unimportant in¬ 
cidents that make the stage the fascinating realm it is, 
even to the initiated. 

She listened with lips parted and an occasional faint 
nod of the head. It was her world, too, though the world 
in which she had failed. 

“I hope you weren’t too good, dear.” 

“I was rotten.” 

Her smile said she knew he couldn’t be that, but the 
lips told him:— 

“That’s good. A bad dress rehearsal is sure to mean 
a great opening.” A sudden longing, uncontrolled, held 
her eyes. “How I’d love to see it!” 

He bent down, lifted one of the white hands on the 
coverlet, pressing it against his lips. 

“I don’t know how I can go through without you,” came 
in spite of him. 

Her eyes clouded. 

“You must, dear! You mustn’t even think of me.” 

“It’s too much to ask,” the broken voice plunged on. 
“To go out and face that crowd with you—here! I 
can’t do it—I can’t!” 

“You must do it, my love.” The spirit so much 
stronger than the body shone from her eyes. “I’ll be 
thinking of you and praying for you. I’ll be with you 
all through the performance. I’ll follow each line— 
every tiny bit of business. But you must put me out of 
your mind. Only your part must count—only your suc¬ 
cess.” 

He was silent, pressing the little hand between his 
warm palms as if to send the vitality from his veins into 



TWO MASTERS 227 

hers. But the only vitalized part of her was the fever¬ 
ishly bright look of eyes that drew his. 

“Frank—” 

“Yes, darling—” 

“You know how I always loved the stage—how I 
always wanted to be a great actress.” 

“I know, my Elaine.” 

The big burning eyes traveled into the past. Halt¬ 
ingly, with breath uneven and the words only faintly 
spoken, she drifted on the tide of memory back 
toward that horizon of hope so many see but never 
reach. 

“Frank—do you remember in the old stock days when 
we first met—how jealous I was of you?” 

“Nonsense! You were just ambitious.” 

“No—jealous! Don’t you remember the time I 
wouldn’t speak to you for a week—because you walked 
off with the big scene?” 

“Mine was the better part.” 

Two tears she pretended not to be conscious of gath¬ 
ered in the dark eyes. 

“No, dear—it wasn’t in me. You tried to give it back 
to me—that scene—at every performance.” Her voice 
trailed away a little wearily and it was a full minute be¬ 
fore the slow words came to her lips again. “But I 
couldn’t take it away from you, no matter how hard I 
tried.” 

She had carried him with her back to the days of strug¬ 
gle and hope, when success was a star at the top of the 
world and effort the ladder from which so many rungs 
fell away as climbing feet sought a firmer hold. The 



228 


FOOTLIGHTS 


days when disappointments were shared with after-theater 
sandwiches and the monument of ambition took the form 
of a dingy stock theater on the Main Street of a small 
town. 

“And I felt like such a dog,” he reminisced. “That 
was when I began loving you—when I was trying to heal 
the hurt of your disappointment. That night when you 
walked out of the stage door in the pouring rain and your 
umbrella turned inside out and I tried to make you take 
my raincoat but you poked up that little head of yours 
and looked neither to right nor left like a real Mrs. Sid- 
dons. And then an old cab came jogging along and I 
scooped you up bodily and carried you into it, broken 
umbrella and all. Do you recall how I held you in my 
arms all the way to your boarding-house and kept telling 
you you had to marry me?” 

“Take me in your arms now, dear. Let’s live those 
days over again.” 

He looked, anxiously yet with an eager plea in his 
eyes, toward the nurse. She hesitated. 

“Frank,” came the voice from the pillow, “won’t you 
put your arms around me?” 

The nurse nodded, coming quickly to the bed. She 
slipped her own arm under the wasted body, lifted it. 
Then the man’s went in its place and silently he cradled 
the precious burden against him, bending down so that 
her position might not be changed. She gave a little sigh 
as his lips touched the silk of her hair. 

“I feel better now,” she said. 

They were quiet a few moments while the man’s eyes 
fastened blindly on a cornice of the ceiling. 


TWO MASTERS 


229 


Her slim fingers curled round his. 

“We both love the theater so, don’t we?” 

“Yes—” But he was not thinking of her words. 

“Only I never had it, dear,—the spark. It is a 
spark—” 

“You have the greatest spark in the world, darling,— 
the love that you give and inspire—that will live on when 
the theater has forgotten me.” 

“It must never forget you.” She stopped, then softly 
went on, “I—I wanted so much for myself—at first. I 
could learn lines and be letter perfect in a few days—and 
look pretty.” 

“You were always beautiful. You always will be.” 

She gave a little tired movement of dissent. 

“It doesn’t matter much—because—because—any¬ 
way—” 

“I love you so,” he said in a shaking voice. 

“I used to tell myself the other thing—the spark— 
would come. It took New York to teach me that if you 
have the other thing—looking pretty and being letter 
perfect in a few days aren’t important. But Frank—” 

“Yes, sweetheart—” 

“I didn’t marry you because I was a failure. I mar¬ 
ried you because I loved you.” 

“You don’t have to tell me that.” 

“But I want to. Do you want me to tell you just when 
I knew I loved you?” 

“Yes.” 

She had told it to him dozens of times but he waited 
with the eager attention of one who had never before 
heard it. 



230 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“Well, it was the time we both opened in ‘The Jungle- 
Beast.’ I had just come to New York. You’d been here 
six months. But I was too proud to let you know be¬ 
cause I couldn’t get a job and was half starved. And 
then we met one day—in Cleeburg’s office—and you made 
him give me a part.” 

“He’d have given it to you without me.” 

“He would not. It was you who managed me. The 
best manager in the world,” she murmured. 

He had an insane impulse to clutch her tighter, hold 
her so that no power on earth or in heaven could drag 
her from him. But the muscles of his arms merely 
tightened without movement. She lay within them, a 
weight too pitifully light. 

“When we opened,” came at last, whispered so that the 
words were a breath, “I tried so hard—I put every bit 
of me into the part.” ' 

“And you were great in it, too.” 

“No, the papers told the truth. I just—wasn’t. They 
didn’t even mention my name—I was just an also-ran. 
But Frank—I was so happy—so proud. My own failure 
didn’t count. That was when I knew I loved you, dear, 
—belonged to you—for always.” 

“For always,” he repeated like an amen. 

“No matter what happens?” 

“No matter—” he could not go on. 

She lay there with eyes closed and a smile on her lips. 
A faint pink like the touch of sunset spread its delicate 
color on her cheeks. But only for the moment that had 
carried her into the past. When the eyes opened and 
looked up to his, they were troubled. 


TWO MASTERS 


231 


“What is it, my Elaine?” 

“Frank—since then I’ve poured all my ambition into 
you. All these seven years—each step of yours up the 
ladder has been mine. And we have been happy—every 
minute of them, haven’t we?” 

He put his inarticulate lips against her forehead. 

“Nothing can take that away. It’s ours—forever. 
It’s more than life gives most people. And I’m not a 
real failure, because my longing has been satisfied— 
in you.” The clouded eyes struggled to his. “Come 
closer, dear. That’s why you mustn’t fail to-night. Tell 
me you won’t.” 

“But the thought of leaving you—it—it’s too much. I 
can’t stand it!” 

“You must, Frank! Everything depends on it.” 

“Do you think anything that matters there—will 
count?” 

“But if I want vou there instead of here—if it means 

o' 

everything to me?” 

Her fingers twined feverishly through his. Her 
eyes were frightened. Her voice gathered sudden 
strength. 

“I want to spur you to triumph, darling, not defeat. I 
want you to ring the bell, so that—always—I can know 
I was a help not a hindrance.” 

“Elaine—you mustn’t talk any more. You’re tired.” 

“No—I’m not. Let me tell you the thing I want to 
say. You can’t serve two masters, dear, the theater and 
me. You love us both—but to-night the theater must 
come first. It is your master—mine, too. You must let 
it take you away from me when you want to stay. You 



232 


FOOTLIGHTS 


must let it absorb you—mind and body. You must 
forget that I’m ill—forget me while I’m remember¬ 
ing you. No matter what happens! Frank—promise 
me—” 

“I can only—try.” 

Her two hands clung to his. 

“That’s not enough! Frank—I’d die now if I thought 
I was going to cause you to fail. You must appear— 
you must make good. You must do the best work of 
your career. After all, that will be serving me too, dar¬ 
ling. You’ll be giving me the thing I want—your name 
the greatest on the American stage. No matter what 
happens, Frank—no matter what—” 

The nurse moved quickly to the bedside. 

“I can’t let Mr. Moore stay if you excite yourself. 
Take this—and please lie quiet for awhile.” 

“You won’t make him go?” 

“Not if you do as I say.” 

She took the powder and, closing her hands round his 
to reassure herself, settled back on the pillow. He re¬ 
mained in his cramped position, half kneeling, half lying 
beside her, filling his eyes with her, listening for every 
faint even breath that told him sleep had once more laid 
relaxing fingers upon her. Like a miser counting gold, 
he counted the minutes that gave them to each other, 
the minutes before the master she said he must obey 
claimed him. He heard those minutes being ticked away 
by the clock in the adjoining room with a terror that laid 
cold hands on his heart. The day must not go! It must 
not escape them so quickly! 

Once more he put his head down beside the pale gold 
one. For a long time neither moved. Then the faint 


TWO MASTERS 233 

grip of her fingers loosened, dropped away. But his arms 
stayed about her, numbed and tense. 

She awoke and lay smiling into his eyes, but neither 
made attempt to speak. Sometimes he whispered her 
name. Sometimes she murmured his. All the words 
that could have been spoken—all that he wanted to pour 
out—all that he felt—choked him. But the futility of 
trying to express it and the fear of weakening her held 
him silent. Theirs was a communion deeper than speech. 

It was late afternoon when she lifted her head, a sud¬ 
den light illumining her spent eyes. 

“ Frank—have they got your name on that billboard 
we can see from the front window?” 

“Yes, beloved.” 

“Big?” 

“Yes.” 

“Almost as big as Kane’s?” 

“Yes, little lady of mine.” 

“Frank—I want to see it.” 

He started up with protest on his lips, but— 

“Impossible!” formed on the nurse’s before he could 
speak. 

“Please, Frank!” 

“I’m afraid it wouldn’t do, dear.” 

“If you’d wrap me in a blanket and carry me in. Just 
for a second—just to see it—once.” 

“Mrs. Moore,” the nurse put it, “it doesn’t seem much 
and I’d like to say ‘y es -’ But it would weaken you too 
much.” 

“No—no! It wouldn’t—it couldn’t! Why—it’s the 
thing I’ve been waiting for! It would give me new life. 



234 


FOOTLIGHTS 


I want to see his name all lighted up. Please—please! 
Don’t deny me just this little thing.” 

Frank Moore’s gaze went desperately to the nurse’s. 
She stood locking and unlocking her hands, nervous un¬ 
certainty battling with professional caution. 

“We’ll wait until Dr. Griffith gets here. If he permits 
it—” 

With gaze fastened on her, Frank Moore knew that 
she was certain the doctor would not permit it. Yet when 
he came at five and the dark eyes went quickly to his 
with their anxious plea, he stood looking down at them 
for a moment, prolonged by silence—then bowed his head 
in quiet assent. 

The man who had been watching did not stop to ques¬ 
tion or consider why. He saw only the light that like 
white fire came again to the eyes he loved. Gathering 
her close, with head bent to hers, he carried her to the 
window that faced the park. 

Dusk with its faint blue haze of beauty had settled 
and through it glimmered the first sparkle of the evening 
star. A building off toward Broadway, mysteriously 
illuminated from below, glowed moonwhite and dream¬ 
like. The city itself, at this weird hour between day and 
night, seemed scarcely real. But it was not on the un¬ 
reality of material things that the dark eyes centered. 
Over the park they wandered and above the long black 
trellis of the elevated. 

There it was, shining beyond its reflectors, the big 
twenty-four sheet:— 


TWO MASTERS 


235 


Kane Theatre 
45th Street 
beginning 
November 5th 


OSWALD KANE 
Presents 
the New Drama 
“THE LAUREL WREATH” 
by 

Gaston Grisac 
Featuring 

FRANKLYN MOORE 

She gave a little joyful sigh. 

“Frank dear—it’s real—it’s real!” 

Her arms held closer round his neck. 

“I’ve asked Kane to keep your place vacant in the 
stage box,” came from him finally. “I couldn’t bear to 
have anyone else in it.” 

“I’ll be with you—rooting for you—don’t forget! I’ll 
be with you—always.” 

He put his face against hers. He could not speak. 
Through the dusk he saw only those great dark eyes with 
their strange glowing light. He stood with her so, while 
she read and re-read the name that spelled to her love, 
ambition, life. Suddenly— 

“I can’t leave you—I can’t!” he broke down. 

“ ’Sh! You must go on and on, darling. Remember,— 




236 


FOOTLIGHTS 


don’t try to serve two masters. You will remember 
won’t you? For me?” 

Their eyes held. 

“Yes,” came from him. 

“And Frank—” 

“Yes, my Elaine—” 

“Kiss me.” 


CHAPTER II 


A KANE opening is not an ordinary first night. It 
happens, at the outside, twice a season at the two 
most artistic theaters in New York. It is an event as 
important socially as theatrically. Weeks before, the 
hum of it is in the air. The public palpitates with an¬ 
ticipation. When Oswald Kane imports a play from 
Paris, it is the most chic, effervescent and gay the wink¬ 
ing eye of Paris has gazed upon. When he produces a 
period play, he trusts neither to his own imagination nor 
the costumer’s but enlists the advice of experts and 
dresses his product with the care of a modiste turning 
out a woman of fashion. Every member of his casts, 
down to the most minute part, is selected with an eye to 
ensemble effect. Sometimes the effect is overdone, a 
surface glazed too smooth to be startling. But it is never 
underdone, and the New York first night audience is 
often hypnotized under the hand of the magician into 
believing a mediocre piece of work an outstanding mas¬ 
terpiece. 

Through the audience that flowed into the Kane The¬ 
ater on the night of November 5th, like an undulating 
stream of scented sparkling color, drifted that murmur 
of eagerness which was breath of life to the famous pro¬ 
ducer. In it he found all the satisfaction of a \yoman in 
her beauty or a painter in the eyes lifted to his canvas. 
Glitter, the incandescence of anticipation, they were the 
arclights along the path of his greatness. He stood in 

237 


238 


FOOTLIGHTS 


the wings, a gentle, artistic hand straying through the 
wavy black hair that fell across his forehead, giving his 
attention to the final details of to-night’s opening. As 
the actors assembled he gave each an encouraging word, 
the last moment stimulus of a faith not always felt. 

The mirror in a dressing-room just a few yards be¬ 
yond Kane’s point of vantage reflected a face mask-like 
in its immobility. The man before it sat staring at the 
reflection as if it belonged to another. A shirt open at 
the neck showed muscles hard and tense. Even make-up 
could not widen the tight red line of the mouth. The 
eyes were dulled as if viewed through a curtain. Frank 
Moore went through his final preparations like a machine 
correctly set in motion. When the last touch had been 
given, he walked to the door and listened to the surge 
of the incoming throng like the song of the sea on a 
smooth beach. 

Suddenly rebellion shook him. What right had they? 
Pleasure! That was all they cared about. To make of 
him a puppet, a thing for their amusement! God, what 
a joke! . Those lights, the chatter, the laughter—himself 
about to stalk on the stage! 

A few minutes later, as he made his entrance to an 
anticipatory round of applause, he had an insane desire 
to step down to the footlights and shout his thoughts to 
the upturned faces that came vague and white out of the 
dark. Those gay seekers who were using him for an 
hour’s diversion, why should they not know what that 
hour meant of anguish to him? Why should the curtain 
that lifted to them lift only on illusion? Why should 
their pleasure be permitted to surmount his pain? 


TWO MASTERS 


239 


But those in front saw only a man going through his 
part with leaden apathy. Frank Moore, the spontaneous, 
the man who with the lift of an eyebrow or the flick of 
a little finger against a cigarette ash could carry an au¬ 
dience into his mood, what had happened to him? A stir, 
that faint but agonizing presage of dissatisfaction, sent 
its warning up and over the footlights. Moore felt it 
with the rest but it quickened neither fear nor blood in 
his veins. Only grim resentment and dull indifference. 
He could not shake them off. He didn’t care. 

Backstage the sensitive fingers of Oswald Kane on the 
pulse of his public trembled for the sum, always enor¬ 
mous, that would sink with the swaying ship of the pro¬ 
duction. As the act drew to its close his restless feet 
paced the boards, his black brows drew together. Yet 
when the curtain fell and Moore came off, the manager 
showed no anxiety. He approached the actor, gently 
taking his arm. Moore looked up a trifle dazedly as if 
not quite sure where he was. 

“Wish I could do something for you, old man!” was 
all the other man said. 

“Rotten, wasn’t I?” Moore answered with a tight 
smile. 

Kane said nothing. 

“Do my best this act,” Moore supplemented. 

“Shall I telephone and find out how things are? You 
might like to know.” 

“No—don’t—don’t! I couldn’t—sltand it!’* His 
strained eyes closed. He went quickly into his dressing- 
room and banged the door. 

Kane stood for a second, hesitant, then hurried out 


240 FOOTLIGHTS 

to the elevator that mounted to his studio at the top of 
the building. 

In the lobby critics exchanged a few cryptic remarks, 
conservatively trying to withhold snap judgment. But 
frankly puzzled, they asked each other what was the mat¬ 
ter with Kane. He was permitting an actor like Frank- 
lyn Moore to walk through his part like an automaton. 

The auditorium darkened. The curtain lifted on Act 
II. Moore made his entrance. He played a statesman, 
ruthlessly trampling under iron hoof friends, family, wife, 
to reach the pinnacle of his ambition. But up to that 
moment he had not been iron. He had been wooden. 
Not ruthless force but numbed suffering marked his ges¬ 
tures, the intonation of his deep voice. More than once 
his hand strayed with desperate weariness to his thick 
brown hair. He managed to catch the gesture in time. 
But even halted midway, it marked itself as strangely 
out of character. 

As he came off at his first exit Kane was in his path, 
pacing up and down. Once more he took the actor’s arm, 
but this time his voice shook. 

“Do you want to go home, old man? Shall I step out 
now and explain? We can ring down the curtain.” 

“You mean I’ve flivved the whole thing, anyway. You 
mean there’s no use going on.” 

“No!” Kane pulled down the hands that tremblingly 
covered the staring, empty eyes. “No—don’t say that. 
But it was too much to ask of you. I had no right.” 

“You—you weren’t the only one who asked it of me. 
I’m going through with it, I tell you! I—I’ll get them 
yet.” 


i, 



TWO MASTERS 


241 


A shout of laughter came from the auditorium. Kane 
could not control a sigh. It was relief after the murmur¬ 
ing quiet that had marked the play’s reception from the 
first. Moore looked up with a quick, comprehending 
glance. He had flivved the production. Failure was 
upon his shoulders—his alone! He squared them deter¬ 
minedly. He waited attentively for his cue. 

Wlien he walked on the stage again, he looked out 
upon the vague faces in that crowded cavern at his feet 
and then his gaze traveled to an empty chair in the stage 
box. It rested there an instant and gradually something 
was woven into the mauve velvet. Filmy and gauze-like 
as a cloud across the sun, it took at first no form. Only 
white and gentle and indefinite. But even before it 
floated into the folds of a woman’s gown, he knew that 
above it two dark eyes were sending the flame of inspira¬ 
tion into his, a silky blond head was bent forward with 
the light of love gleaming from it. The lips were slightly 
parted as if to call to him. Against the rail of the box 
rested transparent hands, ready to lift in applause. She 
was so eager, so intent, so full of faith and urge and hope 
that he did not realize his imagination had put her there. 
Those other men and women must see her, too. They 
must know now that the one he needed to help him 
onward had come because of that need. 

His head went up. A light lifted the curtain of his 
eyes. A live look loosened the tension of his mouth. He 
turned toward the leading woman and again his glance 
swept the audience. Something electric passed over 
them. Franklyn Moore had come to life. He was act¬ 
ing now. No, not acting! For as his deep voice re- 


242 


FOOTLIGHTS 


sponded to the unvoiced call which had come to him, it 
swept that waiting throng across the footlights. Not 
illusion but reality made them move forward with the 
drama. To them he was no longer an actor playing a 
part. He was a man living in anguish because in tear¬ 
ing the laurel wreath from another’s brow, he had torn 
down his own happiness. The wife he loved had turned 
to the man from whom he had snatched it. 

“Of what use is the applause of the multitude,” he 
pleaded, “if I must lose you?” 

And as he spoke the words only a few in that vast 
audience saw his eyes fasten on an empty chair in the 
stage box. 

The dark eyes that met his shone. The shadowy 
hands came together in applause. The white throat 
pulsed. She was so alive in all her vagueness. She was 
sending out to him what he had always known she would 
give him when the moment came, the spark she had said 
she lacked, the power of love to leap the chasm of un¬ 
certainty, to know the heights of achievement. 

His lips formed “Elaine!” He waited for the applause 
to die down. Then with the man’s eyes still on that 
box, the actor crossed the stage to the woman he had 
lost. 

“I ask you only not to leave me! Not now! Give 
me the chance to share with you the success that has 
robbed me of—everything. One chance! Just one!” 

And as she told him it was too late to ask anything of 
her and the door shut behind her, he lifted his two arms 
and his voice broke with the tragedy of the immortal 
tenor’s in “II Pagliacci” as he cried out:— 


TWO MASTERS 


243 


“I am at the top—and I am alone.” 

Even before the curtain fell the bravos rang out. The 
force of them was deafening. That drawing aside of the 
curtain of his soul, that sudden springing to life of the 
fire of genius had an effect more dynamic than would 
have been an easy success from the very beginning. 

It was like a clarion blast across a silent world. It 
galvanized the sullen crowd to action. It carried them 
out of their seats. Through the din and the repeated rise 
and fall of the curtain Moore did not move. They 
clamored for a speech. He shook his head. But like 
insistent children they shouted his name, and as the cur¬ 
tain remained lifted, he stepped downstage. 

“There’s nothing I can say—the credit for this is not 
mine— It belongs to one—” his voice halted. It broke. 
He stepped back. 

Construing his few words as a tribute to his illustrious 
manager, they called for Kane—called and waited. He 
did not come. 

From the wings members of the cast scurried in search 
of him. It was not like Oswald Kane on a first night to 
be far from the footlights at the curtain of the big act. 
He was always close at hand, after eight or ten calls, for 
a gracious speech of thanks. 

But to-night he could not be found. They sent a call- 
boy to his studio. He was not there. He had evidently 
left the theater. Discouraged by Moore’s early failure, 
he had apparently given up all possible hope of the ulti¬ 
mate overwhelming triumph that was his. 

The curtain descended finally after announcement had 
been made that the manager could not be located. 


244 


FOOTLIGHTS 


Keyed to his topmost effort, Moore changed for the 
last act. He had come through! He had scored—noth¬ 
ing could alter that. And she had made him do it. It 
was her success! His Elaine’s! He had not failed her. 
Two masters! She had said he must serve only one. 
Had he? And if so was it not she, his beloved, whom he 
had served? 

He was on the stage, with that swift glance toward 
her place, that prayer to a filmy figure of his imagina¬ 
tion. And yet not quite. More than his imagination— 
his spirit! They two were one, would be one for all 
time. He knew that now. 

With the same fire of inspiration he went through the 
final scenes. For her he played his part—to her he spoke 
his lines. “You’ve come back to me!” he cried as the 
door opened and the wife of the play entered. “You’ve 
come back. I haven’t lost you, dear.” And a vast 
throng of seasoned New Yorkers responded, unashamed 
of their emotion. 

The play was done. As the last clatter of hot hands 
died away Frank Moore covered with quick, precipitate 
steps the short space to his dressing-room. His eyes 
were still lifted and alight. He caught hold of the door 
knob and as he did so, another hand covered his. 

“Frank—” 

Oswald Kane was standing beside him. 

“I put it over!” came swiftly from the actor and with 
a breath of triumphant relief. 

“I know! ” 

“But I wasn’t the one who did it. She did!” 

“I know that, too!” 


TWO MASTERS 


245 


“You—?” 

“I was there with her.” 

“You—?” Frank Moore repeated. 

“When I saw you were winning out, I felt she ought to 
know. I went over to tell her.” 

“You saw her? You talked to her?” 

“Yes. She knew all about it. Frank—if you could 
have seen her joy! It was like a light from heaven.” 

Moore pushed past him. 

“I’ll go to her—I’ll see it now!” 

“Frank—wait!” 

The actor paused under the shaky, detaining hand. 

“Frank—not yet!” 

Frank Moore looked up dumbly. 

“You will see a smile on her lips,” Kane went on. 
“It will be there—always.” 

The man who heard him stood silent. One would 
have said no change had occurred. Then very low, he 
brought out:— 

“Are you telling me—?” 

“Yes, my boy.” 

Quietly the hand dropped away from the door. He 
stood looking up into the sympathetic face of the great 
manager. Then with slow, shuffling steps, he went back 
to the dismantled boards that faced the dark auditor¬ 
ium. With shoulders sagging and head bent he stood 
for a moment. And then a stagehand, moving the last 
piece of scenery, saw him lift his arms and stretch them 
out to an empty chair in the stage box. 



UPSTAGE 


COMEDY 

Like beauty, color is in the eye of the beholder. To one 
who looks through shadows, white is—well, gray. To the 
uninitiated, a chorus is like a game of roulette—rouge et 
noir. Yet even to play that game, some of the chips must be 
white. 



UPSTAGE 


CHAPTER I 

A ND I said to him: ‘My deah boy, don’t talk to 
me as if I were your wife! And don’t imagine 
you’re the only twin six in town.’ And we settled it 
right then and there.” The full pouting lips broadened 
into a reminiscent smile. The pink and white cheeks 
dimpled. Miss Mariette Mallard, accent on the last 
syllable, laid her trump card on the table for the bene¬ 
fit of her listener whose black eyes sparkled with gratify¬ 
ing interest. “And then he went out and bought me a 
big—” 

Just what the “big” was remained a question, for 
Miss Mariette halted as a girl slid into the chair next 
to hers and stretched out a hand to dust a film of pow¬ 
der from the face of her mirror. They formed a queer 
assortment, those mirrors, all shapes and sizes, propped 
against both sides of the rack that ran down the center 
of the long make-up table. 

Above them, on a wire stretching from one dusty white 
washed wall to the other, was suspended a row of elec¬ 
tric lights in a tin reflector. Before them, dumped 
hodge-podge, were boxes of rouge and mascaro, rabbits’ 
feet, puffs and eyebrow brushes. Into them gazed as 
many types as there are flowers of the field, with just 
two traits in common,—all were slender as birch trees, 
all young as Eve before the serpent appeared. Except 
that to most the apple was no longer forbidden fruit. 

At the moment there were some sixteen in various 


249 


250 


FOOTLIGHTS 


stages of preparing for the costume, largely imagination, 
which the prettiest chorus on Broadway wore in Scene 
I of “Good Night Cap.” It was one of those musical 
melanges commonly known as girlie shows, and adver¬ 
tised in red splashes of poster as “A Bevy of Beauties 
All under Twenty.” Its prescription is filled each season 
with merely a change of lights and trappings to dis¬ 
tinguish it from its predecessor. 

The bloods of New York patronize the Summer Garden 
with a loyalty that brings them back at least once a week. 
The one theater in town it is in which the chorus frater¬ 
nizes with the audience, tripping down a runway into 
the aisles to trill their syncopated love ditties into the 
ears of selected members, or swinging overhead on ropes 
of roses, bare knees perilously near bald heads. 
Buyers, politicians, traveling salesmen, miners and per¬ 
fectly proper tired business men with their smiling bet¬ 
ter halves all enter the place with a twinkle of anticipa¬ 
tion and come out humming a medley of haunting 
tunes. 

On the night in question, one of early March, Miss 
Mariette Mallard’s voluminous moleskin wrap was draped 
over the back of her chair and she pulled it round her 
with a pretty baby shiver as she scanned the girl who 
had just cftme in. Then she winked at the black-eyed 
one. 

“Well,” she observed, forgetting to go on with her 
story, “how is mamma’s sparkler to-night?” 

The girl bit her lip, then turned with a grin that was 
not in her eyes and flashed under Miss Mariette’s little 
nose the hand that had dusted the mirror. On its third 


UPSTAGE 251 

finger blinked a diamond, the size and brilliance of 
which was breath taking. 

Miss Mallard promptly turned her attention to the 
black-eyed one. “Grade deah, suppose you had a block 
of ice like that—wouldn’t you try to make your clothes 
live up to it?” 

The black-eyed one giggled: “And I wouldn’t be so 
upstage about it until I did.” 

The object of their amusement set her teeth and turned 
back to the mirror, addressing the reflection: “I pay 
cash for my clothes. That’s more than some people can 
say.” 

The black-eyed one giggled again. “They look it,” 
she murmured sweetly. 

Miss Mariette indulged in a smile still more saccha¬ 
rine. “They look as if you paid nothing for them, my 
deah. Take my advice and pay cash to get rid of them.” 
She gave a dismissing flourish of her small hand and 
patted her pale blonde ringlets. 

The chorus girl of to-day buys her hats on Fifth Ave¬ 
nue and borrows her manner from the same thoroughfare. 
She never forgets that a lead awaits her if she’s clever 
enough to look and act the part. Not that Miss Mallard 
had any ambitions in that direction. She was content 
to be cute and cuddly and first on the left in the front 
row. But she did try to live up to the moleskin cloak 
and the car that called for her every night. Only at 
unguarded moments did Second Avenue scratch through 
Fifth. “You don’t know how to manage him, my 
deah,” she concluded, baby blue eyes fastened on the 
radiant stone. 


252 


FOOTLIGHTS 


The girl’s lips opened, then shut tight. She had told 
them where the ring came from—and they didn’t be¬ 
lieve her. Besides, if she tried to answer them she’d 
cry, and she’d die rather than let them see her do that! 
It was the same struggle she went through every night 
and two matinees a week—sometimes with bravado, 
more often in choking silence. Somehow they made her 
ashamed, those two, that for her the apple still hung 
high on the tree. If they wanted to think some man 
had given her the diamond, so much the better! It 
would make her seem popular—less a little fool! 

She downed the tears by vigorous motion. . . . She 
sprang up—a kick of her heel sent her chair spinning— 
and ripping open her one-piece serge dress, she tossed it 
on the hook in the wall where hung a plain brown 
ulster and imitation seal turban—alley cat caught in the 
rain, Miss Mariette had christened it. Then she gritted 
her teeth, pulled the chair back into place and slashed 
on make-up. 

Sallie MacMahon, listed in chorus annals as Zara 
May, was one of those who merited the splashing an¬ 
nouncement of the red posters. Perhaps it was her 
long mermaid hair with its glisten of sunset on the sea; 
perhaps the fact that the lashes shading her deep blue 
eyes were the same gold; perhaps the transparent quality 
of her skin with the swift play of young blood under the 
surface; but whatever it was, Sallie’s beauty held a 
luminous quality Sallie herself did not possess. Sallie 
was just a girl, with a facility for doing what she was 
told. The daughter of a Scotch father with somber 
eyes and an Irish mother with laughing ones, both of 


UPSTAGE 


253 


whom had sailed the misty river into unknown lands 
after a stormy sojourn together in this one, she had been 
left at fifteen to take care of herself, with a love of the 
beautiful on one hand warring against a sense of econ¬ 
omy on the other. 

Sallie loved soft furs and clinging silks such as swept 
into the chorus dressing-room nightly. But she had 
no desire to follow the tortuous path by which such lux¬ 
uries are achieved. However, the fact that the Mallard 
girl and Grace assumed she had done so, did not at 
all disturb her. It was their ridicule she feared, their 
jibes at her clothes. Speeding across the stone floor 
under the Summer Garden stage she tried to bring a 
smile to her lips. They merely trembled. 

There came the march of a military air and the girls 
filed up the wobbly wooden steps and through a trap 
door. Sallie fluffed up her abbreviated skirt, brought 
the smile to her lips, fixed it as if it had been glued there. 
Her young, elastic body rippled through the number 
under the changing lights. She loved the jazz, loved the 
stir of rhythm, and had it not been for the ache in her 
heart whenever she set foot in the theater, she would 
have loved the work. She was nineteen. Music was in 
her blood. 

She danced through the varying scenes with swift 
changes of costume, hurried dabs of powder, and little 
time to nurse her woes. A number toward the end of 
Act II was her favorite. It was the one in which the 
girls trooped down the runway and trilled to some 
not always embarrassed male occupant of an aisle 
seat:— 


254 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“Oh-oh-oh-oh-h-h-h-h— 

Won’t you—smile at me?” 

Often as she swayed through it, it never failed to give 
her a thrill. Likewise she never failed to get what she 
demanded. 

To-night, as she syncopated down the aisle, a light 
like blue fire darted from her deep eyes. Kindled by the 
smouldering defiance of earlier evening it was utterly 
unconscious of seeking an object. But the gentleman in 
the particular seat that was her territory could scarcely 
have been expected to know that. To him it constituted 
challenge. 


“Oh-oh-oh-oh-h-h-h-h— 
Won’t you—smile at me ?” 


urged Sallie. 

The man’s lips parted. “You just bet I will!” came 
in a flash of white teeth. 

Sallie’s mind was not photographic. It registered no 
definite impression of the individuals occupying her par¬ 
ticular aisle seat. They came and went, vague as shad¬ 
ows. But this man’s response and his quick flashing 
smile with its personal note, made her suddenly real¬ 
ize that she had been singing to the same pleasant grin 
every night that week. 

She was still wondering about him as Miss Mariette, 
at the close of the performance, stepped into a short- 
waisted chiffon dress and, pulling it over slender hips, 
slipped her arms through the spangled shoulder straps. 
She and Grace were booked for a party, and the latter 


UPSTAGE 


255 


emerged like a full-blown rose, black eyes dancing above 
a gown of American beauty satin. Then both sat down 
and took some of the make-up off their faces. 

Sallie was in the act of pinning on the alley cat. 

“Do show him to us, my deah!” persiflaged Miss 
Mallard. “Don’t be so-er-close, even if he is.” 

Sallie jabbed the pin into her head, winced in pain 
and, with chin trembling and eyes hot with starting tears, 
hurried into the corridor followed by the familiar titter. 
Blindly she made her way up the stairs to the stage en¬ 
trance. 

Outside, a blaze of changing lights proclaimed that 
Broadway was rubbing the sleep from her eyes and pre¬ 
paring to dance. A gold haze lined the sky, veiling 
the night even to the silver-white buildings that reared 
their heads high into the heavens. Lined up at the 
curb was a row of taxis. The modern stage door Johnny 
no longer stands, bouquet in hand. He remains dis¬ 
creetly in his cab or car and only when the lady of his 
choice emerges does he do likewise. 

As Sallie started to cross the street someone called 
“Good-evening.” But that being a familiar method of 
address, she passed on without a glance. 

“I say,” pleaded the voice, “won’t you smile at me 
again?” 

Sallie turned then. Descending from a big yellow car 
which, had she known more of auto aristocracy, would 
have stamped itself as of prohibitive peerage, was the 
man of the aisle seat. 

He came nearer. 

Sallie turned flutteringly on her heel. 


256 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“Wait, please,” he begged and his teeth gleamed as 
they had in the theater. They were nice teeth in a 
boyish mouth, and upon Sallie they had a disarming 
effect. In spite of an instinctive impulse to run, she 
hesitated. The talon scratches inflicted in the chorus 
dressing-room were still bleeding and the smile of the 
man who had ceased to be a shadow was balm. 

He reached her, lifted his hat. 

Sallie shifted uncertainly from one foot to the other. 

“Come for a ride, won’t you?” he asked. 

“Oh, I couldn’t,” she answered promptly. 

“Why not?” 

“I—I just couldn’t, that’s all.” 

He gave her a curious, somewhat puzzled look. 
“Round the park—once?” 

“I—I—no, thank you, I couldn’t.” 

“Then let me drive you home.” 

“I—I don’t live very far. I always walk it.” 

“Well, ride it to-night. Please!” Again that dis¬ 
arming gleam. 

Sallie looked up with eyes clouded and a tremor on her 
lips. “It’s nice of you to want to take me, but—” 

“But I’ve been coming here every night this week try¬ 
ing to make a hit with you, and until to-night you never 
even knew I was alive. Don’t you think you ought 
to be a little kind to a fellow who’s as devoted as 
that?” 

“I—I’d like to, awfully—but—” 

“Then what’s to prevent?” 

She looked down, tracing a pattern with the toe of her 
boot. 



UPSTAGE 257 

“Please—I—thanks just the same/’ she brought out 
finally. 

She took a step toward the curb, away from him. 

And just then came one of those feathery gusts that 
send whirling the wheel of fate. Miss Mariette Mallard 
and Grace issued from the stage door, their exchange 
of glances telling too plainly that they were still enjoy¬ 
ing the laugh at her expense. At the curb waited a 
limousine quite overshadowed by the gorgeousness of 
the big yellow touring car. They drew near, still gig¬ 
gling. 

Swift as a bird, Sallie veered back to him. Instantly 
he was at her side. 

“You can take me home”—it was breathless—“I’ll let 
you do that.” 

Eagerly he helped her in, took his place at the wheel. 
Sallie turned with the air of royalty. With the sweetest 
of smiles, her head inclined in the direction of the two 
girls. As the car sped round the corner she saw them 
halt abruptly and, like Lot’s wife, stand rooted where 
where they stopped. 


CHAPTER II 


T O a woman, the discovery that events do not work 
out as she had planned comes in the nature of a 
disappointment. To a man, the same discovery adds 
zest to the determination to make them do so. The man 
in the yellow touring car was amazed to find that Sallie 
actually did permit him to drive her home and no farther. 
He had anticipated that run round the park at least 
once—probably twice—possibly three times. He had 
even anticipated a cozy supper at which, across a table 
not too wide, he could drink deep of a pair of well-like 
blue eyes shaded with gold. But Sallie gave him her 
address, ten blocks from the theater, and though he 
urged with all the masculine dominance of which he was 
capable, she got out of the car in front of a brown- 
stone house sagging as if with the weight of its own 
years. 

The man looked up the steep steps to where a flicker 
of gaslight sifted on the broken mosaics of the vesti¬ 
bule. 

“Is this where you live?” he queried, still holding the 
hand by which he had helped her. 

Sallie nodded, adding as she tried to withdraw the 
hand, “Thanks ever so much.” 

“Here—just a minute!” He drew her back. “You 
haven’t told me your name yet!” 

“Zara May.” 

“On-the-level name, I mean.” 

258 


UPSTAGE 259 

“Oh”—she flashed him a smile—“that one’s good 
enough.” 

“Peaches and cream would fit better!” came in quick 
response. 

She jerked her hand away. “Good-night, Mr.—Mr.—” 

“Patterson. Jimmie Fowler Patterson. You’ll notice 
I’m not so stingy as somebody else!” 

She caught hold of the rusty iron railing. 

He sprang into the car. “Well, I can wait! See you 
to-morrow, Miss Zara May.” 

Two emotions played havoc with her dreams that 
night—exultation over the girls and fear. As through 
her narrow rear window she watched the patch of dull 
blue mellow into dull gray, she assured herself that to¬ 
morrow she would do nothing more than walk past the 
yellow car with a pleasant “Good-evening.” 

But of course she didn’t. Not to-morrow—nor any 
other night that found it waiting at the stage entrance. 
And that became every night. 

In the chorus dressing-room an aura of new interest 
surrounded her. That car commanded respect. Miss 
Mariette even restrained her inclination to persiflage un¬ 
til one evening some ten days later when Sallie came in 
after the final act and caught her hunched on the floor, 
back up, meowing with all her might while the alley 
cat reposed over one ear. 

All the old wounds tore open. The blood gushed to 
Sallie’s head. She grabbed the hat and slapped Miss 
Mariette’s face, leaving the latter too startled to retal¬ 
iate in kind. And when Mr. Patterson begged her as he 





260 


FOOTLIGHTS 


did each evening to drive out to supper, she stepped into 
the car, throat too full for speech. 

He gave a broad grin. “Shall we make it up the 
Drive and back to Montmartre?” 

“I’d just rather ride if you don’t mind.” 

They spun up Broadway, through Seventy-second 
Street and into the enveloping shadows of Riverside. 
The moon was up, a new crescent streaking its modest 
trail across the water. On the opposite shore the chain 
of lights was a necklace of clustering jewels laid on the 
plush of night. 

Sallie nestled into the deep leather-cushioned seat, 
somewhat to the far side. A sharp wind lifted the curls 
from under the despised turban and sent them flying 
across the man’s face. He stole a moment to turn and 
gaze. 

“You’re a winner!” he murmured. 

Sallie scarcely heard him. She was lost in the intox¬ 
ication of tearing motor and racing March wind. Never 
had she experienced anything like it. And gradually the 
turmoil of it soothed her own. She closed her eyes. 

When they opened it was to meet a swift turn of road, 
the houses mounted to a higher level and before them, 
far into the star-eyed night, a stretch of wooded walk 
through which the Hudson shimmered. 

“What’s this?” she asked, hand grasping his coat sleeve 
as if to stop the onward rush. 

“Lafayette Boulevard. You’ve been up here—haven’t 
you?” 

“Never!” 


UPSTAGE 


261 


He slowed down, eyes mocking her. 

“Honestly! I’ve never even heard of it.” 

“Good Lord!” he whistled and stared at her. 

“How long have you been in the show business?” 

“About a year.” 

“Well, what have you been doing all that time?” 

“Working, most of it.” 

“But after working hours?” 

“Oh, home right after the show. I’m pretty tired 
then.” 

He gave another low whistle, still regarding her cur¬ 
iously, that puzzled, half-skeptical expression creeping 
into his eyes. 

“And Sundays?” 

“I visit the girls I used to work with.” 

“Where?” 

“You mean where did I work?” 

He nodded, still with that curious measuring of her. 

“In Brooklyn—in a department store. I was at the 
perfumery. And one day Miss Barton, Bessie Barton— 
ever hear of her?” 

“Rather! Peach of a voice—in ‘Kiss Me Again.’” 

“Yes. She was playing over there last year and she 
came in to buy some French extract—it’s awfully ex¬ 
pensive—” 

“I know.” 

“I waited on her. And after she’d bought a big bottle 
—it was eight-eighty an ounce—she asked me if I’d 
ever wanted to go on the stage. She said I was—” 
Sallie paused. 


262 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“Go on/’ he put in quickly. “She said you were a 
beauty who didn’t belong behind a counter.” 

“How did you know?” came wonderingly. 

“I don’t need blinders to make me see straight/’ he 
remarked succinctly. 

She gave an embarrassed, stammering laugh. “Well 
—you—you’re right. That’s what she did say—and 
she’d have her manager give me a job if I wanted it. So 
I went with them—twenty-five a week. It was a lot more 
than I was getting at the store. And when she closed, 
they took me on at the Summer Garden.” 

“And you still go round with the Brooklyn crowd?” 

Some note in his voice put her on the defensive. 

“They’re my old friends—why shouldn’t I?” 

He stared at her again. “Queer!” he remarked to 
himself. 

They dashed up a hill. 

“I guess we’d better be going back,” she sighed re¬ 
gretfully. 

“What’s the matter? Don’t you like this?” 

“It—it’s wonderful!” Luxuriously she nestled down, 
eyes half closing again. 

“Then have a heart! I’ve been jitneying you from 
the theater for two solid weeks! Be a little sympa¬ 
thetic, won’t you?” 

She laughed, a ringing laugh free as the March wind. 
“You must think I’m an awful grafter.” 

“I think you’re a sweetness.” 

The laugh died down. “I guess we’d better be going 
back.” 


UPSTAGE 263 

They swung round. “All right. But we’ll stop at 
Arrowhead first.” 

“What’s Arrowhead?” 

Once more that swift quizzical look, then his head 
went back with a long chuckle. “By George, you are 
cute!” 

“What’s so funny about my asking?” 

“It’s called Arrowhead Inn, sweetness—and we’re go¬ 
ing there for supper.” 

“Oh!” 

“Now I guess you think you’re not hungry?” 

“No—I am hungry.” 

Her prompt and unexpected reply pleased him hugely. 

“Right! There you are!” 

They were flying up a drive, round a grass plot and 
under a porte-cochere. Sallie saw a house girdled with 
glass that glowed, warm and alluring. 

She went into the hall while her host parked the car. 
A mirror on the wall reflected a face very different from 
the one she saw habitually in the jagged glass of the 
dressing-table or the mottled one above her washstand. 
Its eyes were glistening, red lips were laughing, and at 
one corner a dimple danced. The blood surged under 
the smooth skin and went singing through every vein. 

To a rotund observer standing nearby, the girl in the 
mirror looked like a golden-haired sprite. To Sallie 
she looked nothing more than happy. She proceeded 
to powder her nose critically and straighten the alley cat 
on the shining curls. She was still engaged in the proc¬ 
ess when Mr. James Patterson came in and bore her 
off under the rotund one’s fat nose. Mr. Patterson 


264 


FOOTLIGHTS 


had already achieved a proprietory air that prohibited 
trespassing under penalty of the law. 

He refused the first table offered, selecting one close 
against the window with an intimate little lamp shed¬ 
ding its blush over the cloth. Sallie had never felt so 
important, not even the night of her stage debut, for 
then she had been conscious solely of the fact that she 
was dancing with no skirt on before a lot of people. 

The head-waiter helped her out of the ulster. Mr. 
Patterson then seated himself and for the first time 
Sallie saw him under revealing electricity. 

His hair, parted at the side and brushed straight 
from his forehead, gave evidence of having been in boy¬ 
hood the color affectionately known as “carrots.” But 
frequent use of water and military brushes had chari¬ 
tably darkened it. Remnants of freckles lingered where 
no amount of hatless motoring could promote more than 
one coat of tan. Above them gray eyes, not so young 
as they might have been, searched a world with which 
they were well acquainted. Smiling, they were a boy’s. 
In repose, as old as any frequenter’s of stage doors. 

Sallie’s gaze settled, not on his features but on his 
clothes. Patch pockets slanted across the coat. The 
waistcoat was high and of the same dark blue material 
threaded with a hairline of white. From the sleeves 
she thought rather too short, he shook down blue silk 
shirt cuffs matched by a soft collar. His blue Persian tie 
was held in an immaculate four-in-hand by a small pearl 
scarfpin. The correctness, the perfection of detail, were 
to Sallie positively thrilling. As he picked up the menu 
she noticed that his hands were wide and muscular 


UPSTAGE 265 

with no shine on the nails. She was glad he wasn’t a 
dude. 

He proceeded to order with the casual ease of one 
who knows the chef’s best dishes. Sallie pulled off her 
gloves, crossed her arms on the table, leaned forward 
to listen with a kind of awe. He turned back and as 
he did so his glance fell on her hand. It riveted there, 
then slowly traveled upward accompanied by the 
same long low whistle he had emitted as they drove up¬ 
town. 

“Whew, what a stone!” 

“Yes,” replied Sallie. “It used to be my mother’s.” 

He stared. After which came a knowing twinkle to 
his eyes and a laugh, equally knowing, to his lips. He 
said nothing. 

“Honestly it was,” Sallie protested. 

His stare probed her—then came a faint flash of re¬ 
sentment. “I wasn’t born yesterday—not quite,” he an¬ 
nounced. 

Tears started to Sallie’s eyes. “Please —please be¬ 
lieve me!” 

“Your mother owned a stone like that and you had to 
work in a department store?” 

“It does sound funny. But it’s true! We never had 
any money after my father died. Nor before, either. 
He just saved and saved, and then when he was gone 
mother just spent and spent. She went crazy spending. 
She said he never gave us enough to eat when he was 
alive and she was going to make the best of it now that 
he was dead. So she went to the savings bank and took 
out every cent and had a wonderful time—for a while. 


266 FOOTLIGHTS 

Hats and dresses and movies every night. She was aw¬ 
fully pretty—” 

“I believe it,” came vehemently. 

“And she never did have a decent thing to wear while 
my father was living. Then one day she came home 
with this ring. ‘Baby/ she said—she always called me 
her baby—‘there’s not much left and before it’s all gone, 
I want to be sure you’re fixed. If I put it in the bank 
I’ll take it out again, so this way we’ll always have some¬ 
thing we can hock if we need to.’ ” 

He chuckled. “And did you ever need to?” 

“Often.” 

Unwittingly, perhaps, his gaze shifted from the diamond 
to her dress and hat. She needed no intuition to inter¬ 
pret that look. Experience had taught her exactly what 
it meant. And where defiance had met the girls in the 
dressing-room, a wave of shame now swept over her. 

Gazing at him in his immaculate perfection, her fin¬ 
gers twitched to toss the alley cat out of the window. 
Yet she could not apologize for it. She couldn’t explain 
that, being her father’s daughter, she was banking such 
of her earnings as could be spared against the day when 
the sapphire sparkle would fade from her eyes. 

As the ’busboy shook out the glistening white napkin, 
placing it across her knees, she felt an absurd inclination 
to slide under the table. 

Mr. Patterson’s attention, however, had turned to the 
silver dish of frogs’ legs submitted for approval. He 
regarded them critically, nodded to the waiter, and Sal- 
lie’s discomfort vanished in the thrill of a new experience, 
though she wished he had ordered a nice thick steak. 



UPSTAGE 


267 


When they were once more gliding down the Drive he 
leaned over, quickly freeing one hand, and gave hers a 
squeeze. 

“You’re an adorable infant!” he whispered. “Don’t 
know just what to make of you, but you’ve got me 
going!” 

Sallie looked up a little uncertainly. “My right 
name’s Sallie MacMahon,” she stammered. 

“I don’t care what it is,” came tenderly. “My name 
for you is the same as your mother’s—‘Baby!’ ” 


CHAPTER III 


G RACIE deah—will you gaze!” 

Miss Mallard’s wide, wondering orbs, accom¬ 
panied by Grace’s, turned toward the door. Sallie Mac- 
Mahon had just entered, resplendent in spring outfit. 
Above slim ankles billowed a skirt of silk the color of 
her eyes. The ankles ended in slippers mounted with 
buckles of cut steel. Her arms gleamed white through 
transparent clinging sleeves. A necklace of pearls 
clasped her throat and over the golden head brimmed a 
wide hat weighted with roses. 

She disrobed nonchalantly, hanging her garments 
against the sheet that ran round the wall for their protec¬ 
tion. She pretended not to see the nudges of the girls 
but her heart sang a paean of triumph. 

Now they would stop laughing at her! 

Now they would treat her with respect! 

Yea—weep for her, ye wise ones! Sallie’s day had 
come. She had fallen from grace. Worse, actually rev¬ 
eled in her downfall! That very morning, without a 
struggle, she had gone to the bank and wantonly depleted 
her little horde. There had followed a wild debauch 
of spending such as her own mother had indulged in 
years before. Silks, laces, chiffons, feathers! Shades 
of Scotland, the Irish had won out! 

And having recklessly started at high speed, she could 
not stop. She had no desire to. Ridicule she might 

have endured indefinitely, but nightly to sit opposite to 

268 


UPSTAGE 


269 


Mr. James Fowler Patterson in his perfectly tailored 
clothes, conscious of the variety and extent of them, that 
had been the straw that broke the backbone of resistance. 

Once and once only had Mr. Jimmie essayed the role 
of godfather. Reaching home one evening after a long 
drive in the moonlight, he had followed her up the ladder¬ 
like steps to the dim vestibule. Standing there, he had 
clasped quickly round her wrist a narrow glittering brace¬ 
let. 

“To match the ring,” he had whispered. 

Sallie’s gaze had fastened on the jewels that laughed 
up through semi-darkness. 

“Oh—I—couldn’t!” she breathed at last. And don’t 
imagine it was easy. 

“Please! Just because I want you to.” 

“But I—I couldn’t, Jimmie.” 

“But if I ask you? I’m crazy about you, Baby. 
Never was so keen on a girl in my life.” 

Sallie gulped hard and, without looking at it, unclasped 
the clinging circlet. 

“Please,” he protested as she handed it back. “Please 
—dear! ” 

She shook her head decisively. 

“But I want to see you in pretty things. I want you 
to have them.” 

“Thanks, Jimmie,—for wanting to give it to me. But 
you mustn’t—ever do that again. It wouldn’t be right 
for me to take it.” 

And Jimmie had been forced to content himself with 
flowers and kid gloves and perfume—French stuff at 
eight-eighty an ounce. 


270 


FOOTLIGHTS 


That phrase of his, however—“I want to see you in 
pretty things”—clung to her consciousness. She wanted 
him to see her in them. She wanted to see herself in 
them. She wanted those girls to see her in them. 

After which the savings bank simply flew to meet her. 

“Well,” observed Miss Mallard, still devouring the 
new costume, “I’m glad you’re learning how to handle 
him.” 

Sallie slipped into her chair. 

“May we inspect the dog collar, my deah?” Miss Mal¬ 
lard pursued. 

With large indifference Sallie handed over the necklace 
and watched the blue eyes widen. Not hers to inform 
the lady that it had been purchased at a near-pearl estab¬ 
lishment, guaranteeing that “Our pearls rival the 
real.” 

Miss Mariette fingered it lovingly, even to the tiny 
barrel of brilliants that formed the clasp. “Atta boy!” 
she breathed and let fall upon its possessor a look ap¬ 
proaching homage. 

“Oh, that’s nothing,” Sallie found herself saying, drunk 
with the dazzle of scoring at last against her enemies, 
“I’m going to get a car of my own soon.” And promptly 
wondered how she was going to get it. 

But feminine imagination, given full rein, took the bit 
between its teeth and galloped beyond Sallie’s control. 
She spoke of champagne supper parties and a house on 
Long Island and sables, with the largesse of an “Arabian 
Nights.” She tasted the sweets of seeing baby blue eyes 
and impudent black ones dilate with envy as the other 
girls gathered round. She swept on, heedless of sharp 


UPSTAGE 2 71 

turns ahead, and not until the callboy shouted the half 
hour did she halt. 

At the curb that night she found a gray roadster bark¬ 
ing its haste to be off like a pert pomeranian. Mr. J. F. 
Patterson stepped out, then stopped short with a gasp as 
he took in the glory of her. She gave him her hand— 
and waited. To her amazement he said not a word, 
merely helped her into the car. It snorted and raced 
up Broadway. Still not a word! She snuggled into the 
low seat, turned to look up at him. Pie was frowning. 

“What’s the matter, Jimmie?” 

“Nothing.” 

“Something is.” 

“Nothing, I tell you.” His tone was brusque. The 
frown settled deeper, bringing brows together. 

Sallie’s eyes filled. She had pictured something so dif¬ 
ferent—Jimmie bounding with delight when he saw her! 
Jimmie covering her with admiration! 

But his mood did not change. Throughout the ride he 
brooded, silent, absorbed—though she tried desperately 
to make conversation. 

“Is this a new car, Jimmie?” 

“No.” 

“Why didn’t you ever come in it before?” 

“In the repair shop.” 

“Oh!” 

Silence. 

“I like it, Jimmie.” 

“Do you?” 

“Yes. It’s so—so cozy.” 

“Is it?” 


27 2 


FOOTLIGHTS 


Silence. 

“Montgomery’s laid up, Jimmie. And the new lead’s 
made a big hit.” 

“Has he?” 

Silence—a long one. 

“Jimmie—I—I don’t want any supper.” 

“Why?” 

“I—I think I want to go home.” 

“Just as you say.” 

“Jimmie—what—what’s wrong?” 

His eyes scanned the beauty of her, steel buckles, 
silken dress, rose-laden hat. They ended on the glossy 
pearls and his lips which had opened for speech snapped 
shut. 

He drove her home, without a word lifted his cap. 

“Jimmie—please—please don’t act that way.” 

“What way?” 

“So—so queer.” 

He gave a short laugh. 

She clapped a hand over her mouth, stared at him, 
eyes swimming, then fled up the steps. 

The following night Mr. Patterson was late for the 
first time. He swung round the corner just as Sallie 
appeared. She was wearing a violet suit, fluffy lace col¬ 
lar and cuffs, and a hat of violets. They made her eyes 
the same color. During a night of tearful and bewild¬ 
ered groping she had arrived at a conclusion. Jimmie 
hadn’t liked the way she looked! He wasn’t pleased 
with her dress or hat or something. Maybe he didn’t 
think they were becoming and hadn’t wanted to hurt her 
feelings. A lighter color, perhaps, something gayer! 


UPSTAGE 273 

After which she rolled over with relief, stole a few hours’ 
sleep, and later embarked on another shopping tour. 

But the violet, apparently, made no more satisfactory 
impression than the blue. He handed her almost roughly 
into the car. They shot like a cannon ball into the 
darkness. 

There were no stars. The moon had reached the full, 
dwindled and slipped round to smile upon the other side 
of the world. 

Sallie gulped, groped for a fitting subject and finally 
burst out: 

“Jimmie, tell me about yourself. You never have told 
me much.” 

“Nothing to tell.” 

“How does it feel to have so much money?” she pro¬ 
ceeded for want of something better to say. 

The effect was electric. He turned on her. The car 
jerked to the other side of the road. “You ought to 
know!” 

“I? Stop kidding!” 

“Yes, you!” 

“But—” 

“Look as if you’d come into a Rockefeller income!” 

“Well, I haven’t.” 

“No?” 

“You know it.” 

“I don’t know anything about women.” 

“Well, you ought to know all about me.” 

“Yes—I ought to.” He gave the same ugly laugh of 
the night before but in his eyes was real pain. “But 
who knows what to expect of a chorus queen.” 


274 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“Jimmie!” 

“Oh, what’s the use?” came in husky desperation. 
“Let’s be merry!” 

Sallie stared, choked and bewildered, into the dark¬ 
ness. She didn’t know how to answer, how to act. This 
new Jimmie, this—this nasty one! He was a stranger. 
Small teeth settled into her lower lip. She felt like slip¬ 
ping to the floor of the car and crying her eyes out. 

For three nights they followed the same program— 
Sallie bewitching in a new costume chosen tearfully to 
conciliate the mysterious male—he taciturn, unresponsive, 
answering her labored conversation with husky mono¬ 
syllables or hard cynicism that hurt without enlightening. 
Twice during those three days it drizzled and, instead of 
suggesting supper in the neighborhood as was their habit 
in bad weather, he drove the short ten blocks to the 
weary brownstone house and left her there. 

“As if he was anxious to get rid of me,” sobbed Sallie 
into her pillow. 

To dust and ashes in her mouth turned the sweets of 
her triumph over the girls. Though she continued to 
weave stories for their benefit, to elaborate on gifts in 
the past and the car in the future, to flash her diamond 
and twirl her pearls, the tang had gone out of it. 

By Friday she felt she couldn’t stand it another minute. 

- 

What had she done? Under the glimmering stars she 
gazed up first in mute pleading, then— 

“Jimmie,” she choked, “take me home. I—I—guess 
I’d better—” 

The roadster snarled at the tug that sent it round the 
corner. 


UPSTAGE 


275 


“Oh—another date!” 

“Maybe!” His tone had brought defiance into hers. 

“H’m! Thought so!” 

“You—you’re horrid!” 

“And he’s all to the good—what?” 

“Who?” 

“Well—can’t blame you! What chance has a mean 
little bracelet against a string of oyster tears like that?” 
The volcano which had been rumbling all week sent up 
a sudden blinding glare. “Gad, what an ass I’ve been!” 
it spat out. 

“Don’t talk like that—don’t!” 

“I mean it,—a saphead! Swallowed that diamond 
yarn whole—hook, line and sinker.” 

“It wasn’t a yarn.” 

“You’ll tell me next your mother bought the pearls, 
too.” 

“No—I did.” 

The volcano roared a warning. “God!” A pause 
while his breath caught. 

“It’s true, I tell you! I bought them myself—they’re 
imitation.” 

He flung back his head. His laugh frightened her. 

“Oh—won’t you believe me?” 

“No!” 

“Won’t you—please?” 

“And I put you above them—way on top.” The vol¬ 
cano erupted with thunderous crash. “But you’re like 
the rest of them! Price—a string of pearls—a diamond! 
Rotten—that’s what—! Sit down! Sit down, I say!! 
I’ll get you home quick enough!” 






276 FOOTLIGHTS 

White and terrified, she subsided. Words rushed to 
her lips, clung there. 

He crashed on. 

“But you did put it over! Had me going so that I’d 
have staked my life on you. Got me with the baby stare 
stuff. ‘Baby’—huh! It’s a lesson—I won’t be such a 
damn fool next time!” 

“Jimmie,” the voice struggled to keep steady—“I 
swear to you—!” 

“I wouldn’t believe you on a stack of Bibles! Down 
on your luck—thought you had an easy mark! Then 
something better—pearls!—came along—” 

“I—I’ll never forgive—you!” 

“That’s right! Injured innocence—” 

“I—I could die this minute!” 

“It’s tough, though, when the first time a man really— 
cares—more than he ever thought—” The words halted 
painfully. 

“Oh, won't you listen? Jimmie—you—you had so 
much—” 

“But the other fellow’s got more! Like all the rest—” 

They stopped with a jump that made the roadster 
snort in protest. 

“You—you don’t understand.” The sobs clamored to 
her lips. “To-morrow—please—please listen—” 

She sprang out of the car and up the steps, clinging to 
the iron rail. 

But to-morrow when she hurried out of the stage en¬ 
trance, eyes darting to the curb, Mr. James Fowler Pat¬ 
terson was not there. 




CHAPTER IV 


M Y deah—what has become of the orange motah?” 
Miss Mariette turned her round stare on Sallie. 
“What—d-do you mean?” 

“Well, the yellow peril doesn’t seem to be on duty 
any more.” 

“Oh! He—he’s out of town.” 

“M’m! Been ‘out’ some time, I take it.” 

“F-four weeks.” Sallie found it impossible to talk 
these days without a quiver. And the wells that had 
been her eyes were wept dry. 

“When does he return, my deah?” 

“Oh s-soon now, I g-guess.” 

“H’m!” Merciless blue eyes took in the small white 
face, listless shoulders and drooping mouth, while their 
owner hummed low and languorously, “When I Come 
Back to You.” After which she proceeded: “And the 
cobbles, my deah?” 

“What?” 

“Pearls! The dog collar?” 

“Oh! I—I p-put it away.” 

“Ah?” 

“I—it—I thought I’d better not wear it round all the 
time.” 

After a moment of slow scrutiny Miss Mariette cast 
her eyes heavenward. “You were a wise child not to 
let him get back the diamond, too,” she drawled. 

“I d-don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

2 77 


278 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“Oh—d-don’t you? My deah, do I look as easy as 
that? It’s plain he’s gone his merry way tra-la.” 

Like a whip Sallie snapped round at her. “He 
hasn’t!” 

“Tra-la, tra-la-la!” 

“Don’t you dare—” 

“Then where’s the car, tra-la?” 

“I told you—” 

“The car he was giving you, I mean.” 

Grace, who had entered in time for the last words, tit¬ 
tered with all the old enjoyment. 

“Poor little car skidded on the way, Gracie deah,” 
announced Miss Mallard. 

Sallie’s throat closed in a hard knot. Her head almost 
dropped on the table. But not quite. Pride kept it 
up. Pride and the determination never to let them 
know how right they were. 

Yet Miss Mallard, having resumed her tactics of war¬ 
fare, allowed to slip no opportunity for attack. She 
teased and tormented and tra-la’d with purring delight, 
sharp little talons inflicting new wounds. 

Sallie began to slink into the dressing-room as if to 
hide from insinuating smiles. And coming out of the 
stage door, she fairly ran round the corner to escape the 
torturing vision of that line at the curb. 

The pearls she had recklessly let go. After what he 
had said, she couldn’t bear to touch them. They curled 
in her hand like some wriggling reptile. Her first im¬ 
pulse had been to toss the necklace into an ashcan, but 
eventually she found herself back at the near-pearl shop. 
A suave salesman after much fingering and testing re- 


UPSTAGE 


279 


minded her that they did not refund on merchandise but 
added that he might be able to resell at a loss if she 
cared to leave it. Sallie even hated the money—some¬ 
thing more than half the amount she had paid—which his 
smooth hands finally counted into hers. 

One thing, though, she did determine in the long nights. 
There must be a car! Never must they be certain that 
Jimmie had gone for good! The savings account had 
long since gone the way of all flesh. And cars, like 
Pegasus, soar winged in the clouds. June had come glid¬ 
ing into the arms of May while Sallie suffered and waited, 
lived on bread and milk, and hopelessly priced the 
cheaper makes. 

Other lips, mustached, clean-shaven, young, and not 
so young, answered Sallie’s plea of “Won’t you smile at 
me?” Sallie did not hear them. Other eyes sought hers 
from motors at the curb. Sallie did not know they were 
there. 

She was in her room balancing accounts at 11:30 p. m. 
When she did sleep, figures whirled through her dreams; 
figures and Jimmie’s face. 

Then in the murky dawn of one June day came an in¬ 
spiration. Yesterday she had seen a second-hand runabout 
painted a beautiful blue for only two hundred and fifty 
dollars, with a week’s trial before buying. Her diamond! 
She could get enough for that! A few months in which 
to tear up to the stage entrance and spring out; to dis¬ 
play the shining blue body to startled eyes; to make them 
believe he had come back! Jimmie—who never would! 
She gazed out through the streaky window pane and for a 
time the car was forgotten. 


280 


FOOTLIGHTS 


When the chorus had assembled for the Wednesday 
matinee, a ring dropped tinkling to the dressing-room 
floor. Sallie picked it up, proclaimed that the stone had 
come loose and wore it no more. 

Later, behind a window barred like a prison, Sallie 
MacMahon’s lips clung together and she looked away as 
her most precious possession passed into other hands— 
probably for all time. 

At last the night arrived when the girls sighted at the 
curb a little car blue as the heavens. One of them 
stepped lightly from the stage entrance, fetched a key 
from her bag, bent down, then sprang in and took 
the wheel as though running a motor were a daily 
pastime. 

Miss Mallard stopped in the center of the pavement. 

“I’ll tell the world!” she breathed, forgetting Fifth 
Avenue. “She wasn’t lying, Grace,—she wasn’t! ” 

Sallie MacMahon smiled upon them, put her foot on 
the self-starter, heard the cheerful chug chug of the 
engine responding and, with terror chasing down her 
spine, spun round the corner. 

As she disappeared, Grace’s reply wafted on the breeze: 

“But he’s a piker, anyhow. It’s as big as a minute!” 

Up Broadway, eyes starting with fear, heart pound¬ 
ing, went Sallie. And every instant’s progress petri¬ 
fied her. Buildings descended. Motor trucks loomed 
up. Trolleys tore, gigantic, within an inch of the blue 
mite that held her. It was completely, totally swamped. 
Alone in it for the first time, she clung wildly to the 
wheel while all Broadway danced. 

Never had she traveled a distance to equal those 


UPSTAGE 


281 


ten blocks. Never before had the thought of the sag¬ 
ging brownstone house been a welcome one. A century 
later she reached her own street, turned in. Then some¬ 
thing snapped. The blue runabout stood stock still. 
Sallie tried to recall the varied instructions of the gar¬ 
age man who had taught her to drive it. Without his 
guiding hand they were Greek. 

She fled in the direction of a passing policeman, 
caught his arm. “Please, would you mind? Something’s 
happened. It—it’s stuck.” 

He grinned as he took in the blue mite. “Better go 
and phone your garage, Miss. I’ll take care of it till 
you get back.” 

Sallie dropped his arm. 

“‘Why, I—I haven’t any—” 

“What?” 

“Garage.” 

“What do you do with it at night? Take it to bed 
with you?” 

“N-nothing. It—it’s new. I—I never thought—” 

“Then find some place to put it—quick. They’ll 
send you a man—” 

Sallie stood stock still as the car, then turned on her 
heel and dashed in the direction of the brownstone house. 
On the top step she dropped. 

Not a cent in the world! Diamond gone!! Car that 
was no good!! And no place to put it!!! 

Early in her career as a motorist she had discovered 
that cars have a way of gathering expense like dust 
by the wayside. There had been extra tires and repairs 


282 


FOOTLIGHTS 


even while you were learning to run it. It fairly ate 
up gas. You needed twice as much as she had reck¬ 
oned. 

And now—this! 

Helplessly she gazed at the point far down the block 
where the policeman stood guard. From time to time 
his glance roved impatiently—and when at last he swung 
on his way, leaving the blue mite unprotected, Sallie 
knew there was nothing left but to sit there and watch 
it all through the night. 

Then it was that the wells which had run dry filled 
once more, overflowed. Fluddled in a corner of the stoop, 
she fastened her wilted gaze on a spot of blue parked 
close to Broadway and wondered what she was going 
to do with it when morning arrived. 

She came to drowsily as a clock struck one and some¬ 
thing heavy descended on her shoulder. It pulled her 
upright, shook the sleep from her eyes and a cry from 
her lips. The policeman! 

“What are you doing out here?” 

She strained forward. 

“Jimmie!!!” 

“What are you doing, I say?” 

“Jimmie—is it—is it—you?” 

“Answer me!” 

U I—oh, I can’t believe it! You— you!!” Then panic 
seized her. “Jimmie—don’t—don’t go again! Wait— 
let me tell you! I’ve been praying you’d give me the 
chance to tell you. I—it was true,—I did buy all those 
things myself. I did—I did! I was afraid you’d be 
ashamed of me.” 


UPSTAGE 


283 


He stood glaring silently down at her and when his 
voice did come, it was thick and tense. 

“Didn’t you know it was just those old clothes of yours 
that convinced me the story you gave me was straight?” 

“But the girls always made fun of them—and I wanted 
to look right for you. And you thought—oh, Jimmie, 
what you thought has nearly killed me!” 

“What could a man who knew his Broadway think 
when you appeared all of a sudden in a million dollars 
worth of finery?” 

“But it wasn’t true! I took all my money out of 
the bank to look nice just for you. Jimmie—if you go 
again—the way you did—I—I’ll die!” 

He gave no direct answer. Instead he gripped her 
shoulders until they ached. 

“What are you doing out here this time of night? 
Answer me that!” 

The car! Her eyes raced down the block. There it 
stood, untouched. 

“I—I hocked my diamond, Jimmie, and bought a car. 
I made the girls think you were going to give me one 
and I didn’t want them to know that you—you—” She 
turned away. “So I hocked the ring—and—and got—• 
that!” 

He followed her eyes to where a spot of blue reposed 
near the corner. 

“And now it won’t go and I haven’t any money to 
put it anywhere. They’ve been keeping it where I 
bought it and I never thought about garaging. So— 
so when it broke down I just had to sit here and watch 
it all night.” 



284 


FOOTLIGHTS 


The rushing words halted. She looked up at the face 
bent over hers. If Mr. James Fowler Patterson had a 
sense of humor—and he had—the comedy of the pres¬ 
ent situation failed to bring it to light. He stood and 
gazed down into the small tired face lifted with such 
desperate appeal. 

“I_” 

“Jimmie, won’t you believe me this time—please?” 

He bent closer. “If I tell you I could take a gun this 
minute and blow out what little brains I’ve got, will 
you believe met Will you?” He did not give her time 
to answer. “I deserve it—shooting’s too good. Why, 
even if you dressed up like a Christmas window, only 
a saphead who’s wasted all his life chasing up and down 
Broadway could have made such a mistake. What’s 
love, anyhow? And sweetheart—I do love you. These 
weeks without you have proved how much.” 

She closed her eyes as the words came. 

“Why,” he plunged on, “my dad had given me up as 
a bad job—said he was through! And six weeks ago 
I went to him and told him I’d found the girl who could 
make a man of me—asked him to take me on at the 
Patterson Iron Works, I didn’t care in what capacity. 
He thought I was joking—but I put on overalls and 
rolled up my sleeves. Because I wanted to be good 
enough for you. That was just about the time you 
showed up in all that gorgeousness. And I let the idea 
get hold of me— Don’t cry, honey,—I can’t stand it!” 

There was an instant of potent silence, then: 

“How did you happen to come past here to-night— 
Jimmie?” came smothered. 


UPSTAGE 


285 


“I’ve been coming past here every night.” 

“Then why—why did you stay away from the the¬ 
ater?” 

“I didn’t—for long. Wanted to—but couldn’t! I’ve 
watched you come out from around the corner—” He 
broke off. “Sweetness—you’ve been looking awfully 
sick.” 

“I’ve been awfully lonesome.” 

He lifted her chin. 

“Baby—” 

“Yes, Jimmie—dear—” 

“Will you forgive me?” 

“Jimmie—” 

“Yes, Baby—dear—” 

“Will you wait here till I get into my old rig, then 
take me for a ride in my new car?” 



CURTAIN! 


MELODRAMA 

It consists not in shouts, the leveled gun, the drawn sword, 
the flashlight in the dark. The quiet moment of decision 
that means happiness or wreck; the hesitant hand moving 
toward a doorknob that may open upon joy or the misery of 
revelation; two people waiting in stillness for the pendulum 
of uncertainty to swing—that is melodrama as it is played 
every day within the four walls that enclose your next-door 
neighbor. 



CURTAIN! 


CHAPTER I—ACT I 

J OHN SHAKESPEARE’S son remarked once in a 
play he lightly invited us to take “As You Like It” 
that all the world’s a stage. He told us that men and 
women have their exits and their entrances, that one man 
in his time plays many parts. But John Shakespeare’s 
son did not refer to the acts that make up this drama 
of living. The first act of introduction, the second of 
conflict, the third of revelation, the fourth of readjust¬ 
ment. Not that all lives can be so simply subdivided. 
To some dramas there are ten or twelve scenes, swift¬ 
changing, tense, terrifying. But whether few or many, 
live in acts we do—each with its conflict, its climax, 
each beginning a new problem, a new turn, a new devel¬ 
opment, until the final curtain is rung down that leaves 
the house of life in darkness. 

Partly because of this and partly because Nancy 
Bradshaw’s story is essentially of the theater, it seems 
but natural so to divide the telling of it. 

The first scenes had been that old familiar struggle 
of the young girl trying to convince managers that even 
though she has had her theatrical training somewhere 
west of Broadway she really can act. She had en¬ 
countered and combated! the habitual have-to-show-me 
look until one day in Jerry Coghlan’s office while the 
latter regarded her over horn-rimmed specs, she gave 

him a disarming smile and said quietly: 

289 



290 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“Yes, Mr. Coghlan, I know you’re from Missouri, 
but how can I show you unless you give me a chance?” 

Coghlan, being Irish, had tossed back his head with 
a roar of approval and given her what she asked. He 
had never regretted it. 

Nancy possessed two qualities that register with an 
audience more quickly than genius—charm and person¬ 
ality. I might better say, personality alone, because 
that includes charm, doesn’t it? By the time she had 
reached the place of leading woman and the age of 
twenty-six, she had a following many older and more 
experienced actresses envied. She was never idle. 
When Coghlan, who had her under contract, was un¬ 
able to find a play or part for her, he loaned her to 
other managers who featured their good fortune in ad¬ 
vance notices and electrics. 

Nancy had what Broadway calls class. She was 
supple and slender with an airy slimness that seemed 
more spiritual than of the body. She could curl up in a 
couch corner with child-like grace or stand tense and 
supplicating or sway with emotion. But whatever she 
did, one felt the spirit ruling the flesh. She had heavy 
gold hair that fell in deep sweeping waves over ears and 
forehead. The brows that mounted above gold-brown 
eyes were straight and black as were the lashes shading 
them. Her mouth, a bit too large for beauty, had a 
fascinating upcurve when she smiled but in repose was 
strangely firm and chiseled. One found oneself puz¬ 
zling as to whether it belonged in a face whose charm lay 
in the fact that its actual features eluded one. I’ve called 
her eyes gold-brown. They weren’t always. At times 


CURTAIN! 


291 


across the footlights they looked green, at others hazel, 
and often in some scene of fury they went burning black. 

Audiences loved her in all her moods—the matinee 
girls because she might have been one of them; older 
women because she might have been their daughter; 
young men because she was so much a girl they wondered 
how much a woman she might be; and old men because, 
for a fleeting moment, she gave them back their youth. 

It looked pretty much as if Nancy’s drama of living 
were to flow smoothly to its final scene with no more 
conflict than a pastoral comedy. And then she met 
Richard Cunningham. 

She had seen him once when lunching at the Ritz with 
Ted Thorne, author of the play in which she was rehears¬ 
ing. Thorne had returned the nod of a man several 
tables away and Nancy asked who he was. 

The young playwright’s eyes snapped as he answered: 
“You, too—eh? Never saw a woman yet who didn’t want 
to know Dick Cunningham.” 

“Oh, I don’t want to know him,” Nancy defended her¬ 
self. “I just want to know about him.” 

“Amounts to the same thing, my dear. Well, when 
the papers speak of Cunningham, they call him a club¬ 
man—whatever that may mean—and turfman. He keeps 
a string of blooded horses at his place on Long Island 
that are the envy of exhibitors all over the country. He 
has a shooting box in the Adirondacks. He’s second 
Vice-president of a railroad or two, is a regular first- 
nighter, has more money than any one woman could 
spend, and no one woman has so far succeeded in annex¬ 
ing it. Men like him and women feel toward him much 


292 FOOTLIGHTS 

as they do toward original sin—they love and fear him 
at the same time.” 

“Thank you,” Nancy imitated his crisp tone. “After 
that, I really don’t think I care to know the gentleman.” 

“You will—sooner or later,” drawled Thorne. 

Nancy turned indifferently from the object of discus¬ 
sion, but in that one short glance she could have told 
you exactly what he looked like. Ted Thorne in a way 
was right. Cunningham was one of those men whom 
women sense the instant they enter a room, not so much 
for height, big shoulders and powerful dark head, as for 
a certain dynamic force that stimulates fear and curios¬ 
ity at once. In Caesar’s day he might have been a Marc 
Antony, but I doubt whether Cleopatra could ever have 
persuaded him to abandon his armies for her dear sake. 
More likely the devastating Egyptian would have de¬ 
scended from her throne, laid her dainty olive hand in his 
and followed where he led. 

For a man with manifold interests, Cunningham had 
few hobbies—two, to be exact—his horses and the the¬ 
ater. Actors, managers, dramatists, press-agents, all the 
busy bees in that hive of Broadway, knew him—some by 
sight only, others well enough to call him by his given 
name. No first night was complete without him. His 
familiar shoulders swung down the aisle at eight-thirty 
sharp, hand stretched here and there in greeting. 

It was said his love of the theater far exceeded his 
interest in women. In the same way, though in lesser 
degree, they were necessary to his happiness—for amuse¬ 
ment. They entertained him. But as the play is done 
in a few hours and one seeks new diversion, so they had 




CURTAIN! 


293 


a way of revealing themselves to him that after a short 
period became a bore. He grew to know them too well 
—and the glamor was gone. To-morrow another play! 
To-morrow—! 

And then he met Nancy Bradshaw. 

It happened the opening night of Thorne’s comedy just 
at the time Coghlan surprised Nancy by elevating her 
to stardom. 

What a difference one little preposition makes! Step¬ 
ping out of a taxi into dripping rain at the stage entrance, 
Nancy heard a shriek and saw her colored maid drop a 
hatbox on the wet pavement to point wildly at the elec¬ 
tric sign outside the Coghlan Theater. 

Instead of:— 

“THE GAMESTER” 

with 

Nancy Bradshaw 


she read:— 


NANCY BRADSHAW 
in 

“The Gamester” 

It blinked and smiled at her, that dazzling announce¬ 
ment. She shut her eyes in ecstasy that hurt. When 
she opened them, shameless tears were streaming down 
her cheeks and a prayer was in her heart. 

Coghlan was waiting at the door of her dressing-room. 
She rushed at him, arms flung recklessly about his neck, 
and wept into the stiff white collar that held up his double 
chin. 


294 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“You deserve it! ” he told her, his own eyes a bit moist. 
“You deserve it. Never asked for it. Never nagged me 
for anything. Just worked like hell—and waited. How 
old are you, kid?” 

Nancy looked up. “T—twenty-three for publication.” 

“But on the level?” 

“Almost twenty-eight.” 

“Well, by the time you’re thirty-three, you’ll be the 
greatest actress in the country. Take it from me—Jerry 
Coghlan knows what he’s talking about!” 

With his prophecy singing in her ears, Nancy made her 
bow to New York as a star. The audience was with her 
from the first, sharing her joy, her triumph, eyes shining 
with hers, tears flowing when hers did. She took it all 
modestly enough, even dragging on the leading man to 
take the curtains with her. When finally they brought 
her out alone, she stood a bit left-center and one could 
plainly see her whole body shake, her lips tremble like 
some unaccustomed schoolgirl’s. 

It was at this moment that a man with towering shoul¬ 
ders and the stride of authority left his seat and made 
for the lobby. There he cornered Coghlan and without 
preamble made his point. 

“Jerry,” he said as they shook hands, “present me to 
Miss Bradshaw, will you?” 

“Sure!” said Jerry proudly. 

And thus brought about the climax to the first act 
of Nancy’s life drama. 

Cunningham wanted to give a supper party that night. 
But she told him friends were entertaining her and Thorne 
at one of those crowded and supposedly exclusive res- 


CURTAIN! 


295 


taurants known as “Clubs.” He calmly followed them 
and with tw T o other men managed to procure a table near 
theirs. Cunningham could procure anything anywhere. 

Nancy saw him instantly and wished he hadn’t come. 
Not that he gave any sign of deliberate interest in her. 
In fact, one would have said he did not know she was 
there. His eyes—non-committal, steel-colored eyes they 
were, the sort that read without permitting themselves to 
be read—scanned the menu. Supper ordered, he turned 
their full attention to his companions. But his presence 
made Nancy self-conscious. Probably, she concluded, 
because of what Ted Thorne had told her! 

As they recognized her, men sauntered from various 
parts of the room, white mustache to beardless youth, 
clamoring congratulations. And beside that sweet in¬ 
toxication of dreams realized, the champagne set frankly 
before her was as plain water to the fountain of eternal 
youth. She drank in every word, hearing the same ones 
repeated many times. 

When Thorne managed to break through the circle 
with her and spin into a one-step, those they passed 
nudged each other. About the graceful figure in cloudy 
silver with light hair tumbling over dark eyes and lips 
curving in laughter, filmed the aura of the theater, fairy¬ 
land of illusion, the one magic world that makes children 
of us all. 

As they went back to the table, she caught Cunning¬ 
ham watching her with an unlit cigarette between his 
lips and around them rather a puzzled look, as if he 
might be asking himself some question he could not 
answer. 



296 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“So you’ve met/’ whispered Ted, as Nancy returned 
his bow over the plumes of her black feather fan. 

“Yes, to-night. J. C. brought him back.” And added 
casually: “He’s asked me to make up my own party for 
supper some night. Will you come?” 

“I will that!” rejoined Thorne. “But before it hap¬ 
pens, I’ll ask you to marry me.” 

“Don’t be a goose, Ted,” she laughed—and wondered 
why* a frown replaced for a flash the twinkle in the sharp 
eyes behind Thorne’s glasses. They smiled again as he 
raised his champagne. 

“Here’s to you, Nancy girl—and the future. May it 
be a knock-out for you always!” 

Cunningham, however, did not wait for the date she 
had set. The following night he sent word to the theater, 
inviting her to ride next day. He had his horses in town 
for the Show and wanted her to try his pet stallion. His 
messenger would wait for an answer. 

There was a tone of assumption in the brief note that 
Nancy resented. She couldn’t tell exactly where nor 
what it was but she had a feeling that, though couched 
in terms of invitation, it had been written with the assur¬ 
ance that she would not refuse. At first she was tempted 
to, but anxiety to see his horses—at least that explana¬ 
tion she gave herself—made her compromise by writing 
that he might telephone her in the morning. 

By the time he called her, she had on her habit and 
half an hour later glided uptown in his car. Through 
the park, fairly purring as it sped over the smooth roads, 
it veered West and out at a street in the Sixties and 
pulled up before what appeared to be a two-story house. 


CURTAIN! 


297 


Potted dwarf firs stood at either side of the big arched 
door on a level with the street., Across the front above 
it were three windows, each with its green window box 
from which ivy trailed over the dull red brick. A saucy 
little building it was in the midst of drab flat houses, like 
a French cocotte dropped by mistake into a New England 
village. 

Nancy gazed, puzzled and curious, when the heavy 
iron-hinged door was drawn back and she stepped into 
the unmistakable pungent odor of the stable. 

Cunningham came to meet her. His hands, tingling 
with vitality, sent a glow through hers as he held them an 
instant. Then he led the way toward the rear. The 
floor was covered with a sort of porous rubber that gave 
to the step and Nancy felt an absurd inclination to bound 
into the air as she walked. Along the walls were cases 
filled with blue, red and yellow ribbons, each rosette with 
its streamers as dear to the sportsman as if it had been 
pinned upon him instead of an equine representative. 
Prints of blue ribboners with famous jockeys up hung 
between the cases. Several of the originals stamped at 
that moment in the stalls downstairs. Cunningham helped 
her down the run. 

“I want you to meet my best friends,” he said, stop¬ 
ping before the nearest stall. “Permit me—Lord Ches¬ 
terfield!” 

With approved good manners his Lordship settled his 
velvet nose in her outstretched hand. 

“Chawmed, M’lord,” she smiled. Her wondering eyes 
went the length of the place. 

It was daintily white as a woman’s boudoir, each stall 


298 


FOOTLIGHTS 


bordered in brilliant blue and bearing its occupant’s mon¬ 
ogram in the same color. A border of blue ran round the 
white walls. Even the water buckets and feed boxes 
were white with horse’s heads painted on them. 

There was a rush forward and eager heads poked out 
as Cunningham went down the line. Satin bodies swag¬ 
gered, priming themselves for approval. 

“No wonder they’re your friends!” Nancy observed. 
“You treat them so well.” 

“Do you think friendship has to be won that way?” 
he put quickly. 

“No. It’s usually given first and earned afterward.” 

“That’s not friendship you’re speaking of.” The look 
he bent on her was disconcerting. Nancy turned to 
follow a groom who was leading two horses, saddled, 
toward the run. 

A few moments later they swung through the wide 
doorway into the autumn sunshine. Nancy had never 
ridden any but academy horses and the sense of the fine, 
spirited animal under her with his rearing head and shin¬ 
ing coat made her blood dance. Flying down the bridle 
path was like soaring heavenward on Pegasus. Poetry 
was in the air, in her eyes, in the crack of the gravel 
under their horses’ feet. The man beside her sat his 
mount, a bay of sixteen hands, as if part of it. His 
muscular hands barely touched the reins. 

“How did you know that I rode?” she asked. 

“I recalled seeing your picture in riding habit in one 
of the magazines.” 

“But that doesn’t prove anything. It’s the privilege 
of an actress to be photographed in habit, even if she 


CURTAIN! 299 

wouldn’t go near enough to a real horse to feed him a 
lump of sugar.” 

He laughed, looked down at her slim straight body 
in its tan coat, at the graceful limbs swung across her 
mount, at her glossy gold hair and the light of the sun in 
her eyes. “Well, I should have known you did any¬ 
way. There’s nothing vital you couldn’t do.” 

He put it not as a question but directly, as if giving 
her the information. She found no answer. This man 
left her strangely speechless. For no reason at all her 
cheeks went red with a deeper flush than the exercise 
had brought to them. 

She said little during the two hours of their ride. He 
told her of the fascination the theater had for him. 
Then her eyes shone through their black lashes and she 
told him it was her life. She loved it not as an artist 
loves his work but with the passion one gives a human 
thing. 

“That’s why you’ve made good,” he answered 
promptly. “Because you’ve given yourself completely.” 
He paused, then with the usual startling abruptness: 
“Do you know, I had an actual sense of pride last night, 
watching that crowd swarm round you. Odd, that— 
isn’t it—in a man who had just met you?” 

“Yes.” She did not meet the gaze she knew was 
turned on her. 

When they dismounted and he was handing her into 
the car, he bent down and into his non-committal eyes 
came a warmth that enveloped her like a flame. 

“And to think that I flipped a coin last night whether 
to go to the Show or go to see you!” 


300 


FOOTLIGHTS 


She rode with him every day after that. He arranged 
it as a matter of course. He had a direct way of tak¬ 
ing things into his own hands just as he had a direct way 
of looking and speaking. Often it made her gasp but 
at the same time possessed the attraction male domi¬ 
nance always holds for the primitive in woman. Par¬ 
ticularly to the woman who has fought her own battles 
is there something hypnotic in having decision taken out 
of her hands. 

At the end of two weeks she called his horses by name; 
had fed them more sugar than was good for them; had 
dined and danced with him; and knew, though to herself 
she denied it, that tongues quick to wag, were busy with 
their names. Nancy Bradshaw, popular star, and Dick 
Cunningham who, in the eyes of the world, could like 
Joshua command sun and moon and stars to stand 
still! 

When his friends—men who made the nation’s pulse 
throb—stopped at their table in a restaurant or, as was 
frequently the case, joined them at his invitation and 
gave to Nancy the homage a charming actress always 
receives from men a bit jaded, Cunningham’s probing 
glance warmed and a smile softened his sharply deter¬ 
mined mouth. 

He sent her flowers and books as a matter of course. 
Wherever they went he surrounded her with an atmos¬ 
phere of unconscious luxury that was like a narcotic. 

And finally at the house of the fir trees, instead of 
that diamond-lighted district bounded by the Forties, 
he gave the supper-party they had planned the night of 
their meeting. Ted Thorne was there and Lilia Grant, 


CURTAIN! 


301 


ingenue of the company, a sinuous little thing with pert 
nose, full Oriental lips and eyes that might have come 
from Egypt. She had begged Nancy to let her meet 
Cunningham. 

“She’ll get there, that kid,” Jerry Coghlan had once 
remarked. “Don’t know yet whether her name used to 
be O’Shaughnessy or Rabinowitz. But take it from me, 
she’ll make her mark—maybe because it used to be both.” 

Lights shone in the upper windows as the four stepped 
from the car, not the brilliant light of electricity but one 
gentle and golden. They went up the flight of steps 
leading to the unique apartment above the stable. 

“Make yourselves at home. I’ll send a maid.” Cun¬ 
ningham opened the door to a room done in gray and 
rose, with enameled dressing-table and pier-glass, and 
rose brocade chairs, divan and hangings. 

Lilia dropped her frou-frou of cloak from bare 
shoulders and, taking the center of the floor, gazed round 
with glistening eyes. 

“What a duck you were to ask me!” she cried. “I’ve 
been just crazy to see this place.” 

Nancy turned. “You’ve heard of it?” 

“Heard of it! My dear, there have been some parties 
given here!” 

Swift indignation swept the color into Nancy’s cheeks. 
The insinuating tone more than the words angered her. 
“Don’t talk like that!” Her eyes flashed black as they 
sometimes did in a big scene. 

Lilia looked up wickedly. “Crazy about him, aren’t 
you?” 

The color went, leaving her white. 


“Of course not.” 


302 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“Well, don’t let him know it—that’s all I have to say.” 

She powdered her nose, head perked to one side, 
guided a brush over hair dense-dark as velvet, added a 
touch of mascaro to her lashes, and turning to the maid 
who had just come in asked whether her dress was hooked 
all the way up the back. 

“I do envy you, Nancy,” she frowned, taking in the 
other girl’s graceful figure in swathing black satin, re¬ 
lieved only by a splash of green fan. “One of these 
days—soon—I’m going to have a maid and not break 
my neck gathering myself together after the show.” 

As they went out Lilia linked her arm in Cunning¬ 
ham’s. 

“Do you live in this heavenly place?” she asked. 

“No. But I like to have people here—the people 
I like, I should say. That’s why I fixed up the 
second floor—for parties like this one. There’s a fully 
equipped kitchen at the back. And here’s my banquet 
hall.” 

The short corridor ended in the room of the three 
windows. They might have been entering an Italian 
Villa. Paneled oak stretched straight to the ceiling. 
At either end yawned a marble fireplace with logs sput¬ 
tering the faint scent of fir. A refectory table, with 
couch the color of purple grapes backed against it fronted 
one. Drawn close to the other stood two old Medici 
chairs. On both mantels and smaller tables were candle¬ 
sticks with thick yellow candles. The silver set for sup¬ 
per on the long table gleamed under the glow of branch¬ 
ing candelabra. 


CURTAIN! 303 

Cunningham watched Nancy’s face as she paused in 
the doorway. Her eyes had dreams in them. 

“Makes a great stage setting for you,” he whispered. 
“I’ll want you here all the time now.” 

A manservant passed cigarettes. They sat and 
chatted while they waited for the other guests, Mr. 
and Mrs. Courtleigh Bishop and several friends who were 
coming in from the Opera. Nancy was in a chair by the 
fire; Lilia nested in the couch depths, her somber gaze 
lidded as if heavy with secrets, following her host; and 
Thorne springing up every now and then to wander about 
the room, examining its treasures. 

Lilia watched and listened to the others, much as she 
watched and absorbed every word of the director at 
rehearsals. She had advanced by wits rather than wit 
and was clever enough to know the value of silence. 
Only when Cunningham brought her the spray of or¬ 
chids he had supplied for each of the women did she 
look up from under thick lids. 

“You do everything just right,” she murmured, pin¬ 
ning them into the orange chiffon at her waist, “and I 
guess never anything wrong.” 

In her somnolent eyes was an obvious dare to which 
several weeks ago Cunningham would probably have 
responded. Now he smiled down amusedly at the round 
soft form sunk in the couch cushions and went back to 
Nancy. The somnolent eyes went after him. 

They persuaded Thorne who, unlike a number of writ¬ 
ing men, hated to talk about himself, to tell the plot of 
his new play. 


304 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“I’ve tackled a big problem,” he said. “Woman’s 
rights in love!” 

“You’ve tackled the universe,” came from Cunning¬ 
ham. “Fifty years ago it could have been summed up 
in one beautiful word, ‘Submission’. To-day—” He 
flung up his hands. 

Nancy smiled. “And you’re just the type a submis¬ 
sive woman would bore to death.’ 

“Don’t you believe it,” chimed in Lilia. “He’s apt 
to fall for some baby doll who’ll tell him what a great 
big wonderful man he is and do exactly what he wants— 
when he’s around.” 

“You don’t subscribe to the fifty-fifty theory then, 
old man?” suggested Thorne when the laugh died 
down. 

“No, I believe in ninety-nine-one. At least women 
can make it that if they know how to handle us. Just 
as Miss Grant says, we’re nothing but a bunch of boobs.” 

“That’s what you like to make us think,” Nancy cor¬ 
rected. “And the unfortunate part of it is, we want to 
deceive ourselves just as much as you want to deceive 
us.” 

Cunningham blew a ring of feathery cigarette smoke 
and studied her through it. “I didn’t know you were 
such a cynic.” 

“Did you think dealing with theatrical managers had 
taught me nothing?” she laughed. 

At twelve Mrs. Bishop bubbled in commandeering 
a group of light-voiced women and husky-voiced men. 

She apologized for being late and wailed at the length 
of Russian Opera. 


CURTAIN! 305 

“Courty can sleep through it all,” she sighed. “But 
the noise keeps me awake.” 

She caught Nancy by both hands, drawing her out 
of the chair. 

“I’ve been so anxious to know you, my dear. I 
begged Dicky to bring you to see me but he said you 
were the mountain—Mohammet would have to come to 
you.” 

All through the elaborate supper they gushed over 
her, with just that touch of patronage position assured 
permits itself toward those of the stage. 

But though conversation was light and general and 
Cunningham the perfect host, he might have been alone 
with the young star, so completely did his eyes disregard 
the others. They seemed to send their gaze round her 
like a cloak. She felt it unmistakably and a glow 
radiated from her eyes and voice, from her whole 
body. 

When the dregs of Creme de Menthe and Benedic¬ 
tine had settled in little green and gold pools at the 
bottom of cordial glasses, and candle flames gleamed faint 
blue in the dripping tallow; when laughing voices mel¬ 
lowed into distance and cars had slid off into darkness, 
two figures stood at the curb in front of the little house. 
The door swung slowly shut behind them. The woman 
looked up, the man down, and there flashed between 
them that secret look of understanding that can pass 
only when words no longer have value. 

The last car drove up. He helped her in. The door 
slammed. Without a word he took her to him. Just 
as his gaze had encompassed her, so his arms enclosed 


306 


FOOTLIGHTS 


her now. Her lips trembled against his. For a mo¬ 
ment, endless because of all time, there was silence—that 
intense beating silence that chokes. 

Then his voice came with a ring of triumph. 

“You know I want you.” And he waited for no an¬ 
swer. “You knew I wanted you that night we met.” 

“Yes—I knew.” 

“You’re the first woman I’ve ever wanted—for my 
wife.” 

The word danced into the soft gloom of night merging 
into day, out across the wraith-like Park, up to the sky 
where pale stars spelled it before her. She murmured 
it, and he bent closer. 

“Mine! Nancy—you don’t know how much it’s 
meant, seeing them gather round you and knowing that 
you were going to belong to me.” 

Their lips were one again. At the moment she took 
no count of the assurance that had brooked no denial. 
She only throbbed to the strength of him and smiled into 
the eyes so close to hers. 

The car sped past shadowy trees, past lamps paled 
against the rising dawn, through a world unreal not be¬ 
cause light had not yet come but because these two were 
in a world apart. They spoke low, as lovers will though 
no one is there to hear; in short phrases, saying little 
yet so much, she seeking to hold close this wonder thing, 
he with the claim of the possessor. 

“Why do you love me, Dick?” came finally the eter¬ 
nal question. 

He told her the tale men have told women for cen¬ 
turies and will continue to tell them as long as the 


CURTAIN! 307 

world shall last. “I love you because you’re different 
from other women. There’s no one like you.” 

“How—different?” 

“Why analyze it? You’re You, complete, apart— 
wonderful.” 

“But what attracted you—first? What made you— 
want me?” 

“Well, seeing you there in the center of that stage with 
a first night audience wearing out its hands, you looked 

so beautiful and frightened—give you my word I wanted 

( 

to go up then and there and take you in my arms.” 

“It was the glamor of the stage then?” 

“No. You’re not the first actress I’ve known, dear. 
But you’re the only one in town that scandal has never 
touched.” 

She drew back a bit. 

“That’s not fair, Dick. We’re a much-talked-of pro¬ 
fession but half the stories you hear aren’t true.” 

In the semi-gloom of the car she did not see the smile 
play about his knowing lips. 

• “What does it matter?” was his reply. “You’re in 
the theater, yet not of it—sought after, made much of, 
yet unspoilt. And I’ve won you—for myself.” 

“Yes, you’ve won me.” 

He drew her close. “How much do you love me?” 
“Before all the world.” She closed her eyes as if 
to shut out all other vision. 

“I’m going to take you to Hawaii,” he whispered. 
“That’s the land of lovers—green lapping waters and 
purple hills and palm trees with music in them.” 
“You’ve been there?” 



308 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“Yes. Then to China and Japan—and if you like, 
India. We’ll make a year of it.” 

She opened her eyes slowly and into them came a ray 
of amusement. 

“You mustn’t take me too far away, for too long, or 
the fickle public will forget me.” 

“They’re going to.” 

“Going to?” 

“Yes. I’m a jealous brute. You’ve got to belong 
to me exclusively.” 

“Dick”—she pulled away then, groping dazedly for 
one silent second—“Dick—you don’t mean—you can’t 
mean you want me to give up the stage?” 

“Yes.” 

She stared at him, unbelieving. But his face was noth¬ 
ing more than a blur against the darkness. As the car 
rolled out of the Park, it rolled out of Eden. 

“But—but it’s my career—my life!” 

“I’ll make a new career—a new life for you.” 

“But it’s the biggest—the best part of me.” 

“The new life will be all of you.” 

“No, Dick! I couldn’t—I couldn’t!” 

He caught the hands that were raised to push him 
from her, caught them in both of his. “I want you for 
myself. I’m not satisfied with part of your time.” 

“But dear—can’t you see—” 

“Can’t you see that if you remain on the stage, your 
evenings and part of your days will go to the public. 
I’ll still be going round alone—just as I am now. 
If you’re my wife you’ve got to take your place with 
me.” 




CURTAIN! 


309 


“But I can—except for a few hours. Dick, you say 
I’m different. Let me stay different!” 

“You’ll always be that. Let’s look at it sensibly. 
Dick Cunningham’s wife earning her living—why, it’s 
a joke!” 

“Every one would know it’s not a question of money.” 

“Then why do it? Give some one else a chance—some 
one who needs it. 

“But it’s my life,” she repeated desperately. “And 
now, when success has just come—” 

“You said—‘before all the world’ awhile ago.” 

“Yes—and I meant it. I do love you, before every¬ 
thing. You know that. You’ve swept me off my feet. 
I can’t reason.” And then her hands came together and 
she cried out: “Oh, why did this have to happen— 
why?” 

“It had to happen,” he repeated huskily. 

“Why couldn’t you have cared for some one in your 
own set?” 

“I want you.” 

“Dick,” she said after a moment’s harsh stillness, 
“don’t make me choose. It—it’s too—it hurts too much. 
I couldn’t! I simply can’t do it. If you make me give 
up the stage, you make me tear out my heart. You 
wouldn’t ask that?” 

“It’s a question of which means more. I’m merely 
asking what any normal man has the right to ask of the 
woman he marries—first place.” 

“But you’ll have that.” 

“No. You won’t be free to give it to me.” 

“It’s queer”—her voice came shakily. “I’ve dreamed 



310 


FOOTLIGHTS 


of love as every girl does. But I never dreamed it would 
mean this—this sacrifice.” 

“It won’t mean sacrifice to you. I’ll fill your life, 
Nancy. I’ll make you forget there ever was any other 
bond. Sweetheart—don’t you believe I will?” 

She swayed toward him—then just as quickly pulled 
back. 

“Haven’t I the right to ask it?” he urged. 

“Dick—” 

“Haven’t I?” 

“Oh, I don’t know! I don’t know!” 

“Consider my side.” 

“I only know it’s everything you’re demanding— 
everything! ” 

“I’m giving everything in exchange.” 

She closed her eyes with a very different expression 
from that of a few moments before. Then it had been 
to let him fill her vision. Now it was to shut him out. 

Vaguely it came to her that he couldn’t realize the 
enormity of the thing he was asking. Vaguely she re¬ 
peated aloud: 

“No—I couldn’t! If I mean to you what you say, 
you won’t ask it.” 

He lifted her face so that the eyes opened to meet 
his. Even through the shadows he could read their 
anguish. 

“It’s because you mean what you do, that I can’t let 
you go on.” 

Her hands closed tight on each other and she turned 
to fasten her gaze on the awakening streets. 

“No, Dick—there’s no use. I couldn’t.” 



CURTAIN! 


311 


“Does what I offer balance so little that you can thrust 
it away without even stopping to consider?” 

“If I stop to consider—” 

“You’ll do what I ask,” he put in quickly. “Ah, I 
thought so! Nancy, can’t you see? The woman in you 
is greater than the actress. You won’t always be young 
and worshipped by your public but love—” 

“Will love last always?” And as his arms went out 
to answer: “No—no! Don’t try to influence me—* 
don’t, please! I must think it over alone. It’s my 
whole life—just everything.” 

His arms dropped. They did not again reach out to 
her. He said good-night with the usual handclasp and 
left her at the door of the apartment house, haunting 
white, her dark eyes strained toward the first flicker of 
sun as it came haltingly out of the east. 

A month later she sent for him. In all that time he 
gave her no word, not even the message of a flower. He 
waited cleverly in silence—a silence that made the battle 
she fought all the more difficult. And in the end she 
sent for him, so completely had he absorbed her will. 
Not once during those weeks of struggle did her mind 
hark back to the fragment of conversation at the supper 
party. Because she could care with the intensity of 
the big woman and because she was in love, she did not 
realize that in sending for him she bowed before the 
god she had scorned—Submission. 

And so the curtain fell on Act I of Nancy Bradshaw’s 
life drama. 



CHAPTER II—ACT II 


O UT Long Island way on the North Shore where 
Newport goes to stretch her tired limbs after a 
busy season, there’s a house set like a long white couch 
on a green carpet that spreads straight to the Sound. 

The place is called Restawhile—and having some 
twenty rooms, not to speak of servant quarters, is known 
modestly as a cottage. 

Here Dick Cunningham brought his bride following 
their honeymoon trip through the Orient. Here they 
spent the greater part of each year. For with its kennels 
and stables, Nancy loved it next to the house of the fir 
trees which would always be her castle of romance. Be¬ 
sides, it was not too near Broadway, not near enough for 
whisperings of the Rialto to tug at the heart or fill the 
eyes. Or if the dull ache of longing too deep for tears 
did come, it was a place to hide them from a curious 
public. 

The announcement of Nancy’s marriage and retire¬ 
ment from the stage had come as a shock to the social 
world and a bomb to the theatrical. Broadway buzzed, 
Fifth Avenue bristled, and poor Jerry Coghlan almost 
went crazy. But as the calcium of the society column 
replaced her beloved footlights, the star of the theater be¬ 
came a star of the social realm and another nine days’ 
wonder became memory. 

The column told of her dinners and dances, of her 

trips to Florida, her visits to Newport. It listed her 

312 


CURTAIN! 


313 


with her husband among inveterate first-nighters and 
usually added: “The one-time Nancy Bradshaw whose 
romantic marriage robbed the stage of one of its most 
promising young actresses.” 

Eventually it announced with clarion blast the arrival 
of Dick Junior and later Nancy the Second, quite as if 
a chubby Dick and Nancy Cunningham were more im¬ 
portant than the same weight John and Mary Smith. 

A fairy tale come true even the most caustic observer 
would have remarked, had he known the history of the 
beautiful woman seated on the stone-paved veranda of 
Restawhile one April afternoon five years after the cur¬ 
tain descended on Act I. 

She wore a short white skirt, green sweater and white 
sport shoes. Strands of hair had been tossed across her 
eyes by a romp on the lawn with young Dicky. He sat 
at her feet now, pink legs outstretched, and mobilized 
between them a regiment of wooden soldiers. 

Ted Thorne and her former manager had driven out 
to read Thorne’s latest drama, written with Lilia Grant 
in mind. She was the season’s new darling and her hy¬ 
brid little face with its eyes from the Orient and nose 
from Erin’s Isle decorated many a magazine cover and 
wood-cut. It might also have been seen at the Ritz 
lunching daily with varied and various conquests. She 
had acquired an air and no longer spoke of her profes¬ 
sion as “the show business.” Her gowns were the talk 
of fashion editors, her hats the despair of imitators. 
She was colorful as a Bakst drawing and as decorative. 

The woman in white skirt and sweater that matched 
the lawn sat listening at one side of the tea table, while 



314 


FOOTLIGHTS 


Coghlan at her right measured three fingers of Scotch 
against two of soda and the playwright’s voice sounded 
vibrant against the sweet spring stillness. It was a tense 
elemental story suggested to him by Nancy, with Hawaii 
—land of love—as a setting. Finally he closed the script 
and looked across at her. 

“What do you think of it?” 

“The best thing you’ve done, Ted,” she announced 
instantly. 

“Of course, it’s only in the rough. But I wanted your 
opinion. Am I like that fellow who knows all about the 
Himalayas because he never got there?” 

“Just like him—an authority,” she retorted. 

“But straight—how does it strike you?” 

“I love it! You’ve never written anything with greater 
emotional possibilities.” 

“How do you like Lilia for the lead?” 

“Just the type. And good from a box-office stand¬ 
point, too—she’s made such a hit this season.” 

“Some kid!” put in Jerry, tinkling the ice pleasantly 
against his glass. “Always said she’d make her mark. 
And take it from me, Jerry Coghlan knows what he’s 
talking about.” 

Nancy smiled. “You couldn’t find any one better to 
play an Hawaiian.” 

“Oh yes, we could!” came from Thorne. 

“Who?” 

“You.” 

She laughed and in her laughter the men detected 
nothing but mirth. 

“Don’t you ever have a hankering for the old game, 


CURTAIN! 315 

Nancy?” Coghlan demanded. “Don’t the theater ever 
get in your blood?” 

She bent and lifted young Dick suddenly to her knees. 

“Here’s my theater,” was her answer. 

The playwright’s gaze traveled over the two gold heads 
to the father’s eyes that smiled from the baby face into 
his mother’s. Fat arms wound round her neck and she 
sank her lips in the fluffy curls. 

“You’ve got a part that suits you to perfection,” he 
said in a low voice. 

“Say, there ain’t any part Nancy couldn’t play! 
Always said she had class. And take it from me—” 

“It’s good to know you haven’t forgotten us,” Thorne 
interrupted, still in that low tone. “Whenever things get 
balled up I say to myself: ‘Here goes for a run out to 
Restawhile. Nancy’ll help me straighten them out.’ ” 

“It’s good to know you feel that way. You see”— 
she held Dicky closer—“I can give you the viewpoint of 
the audience now.” 

That night she told her husband of the play. They 
had dined at the Courtleigh Bishop place, some five miles 
distant, and during the drive home Nancy had been un¬ 
usually quiet. She walked up the wide staircase, head 
bent, her long velvet cloak pulled close around her as if 
for protection against the country chill of April. But 
as he followed into her boudoir with its amber lights and 
drapes of cornflower blue she dropped into a chair, let 
the wrap slip from her shoulders and leaned forward, 
speaking rapidly. 

“Tell me something of your doings to-day, Dick. You 
haven’t yet.” 


316 


FOOTLIGHTS 


He recounted the day’s activities—certain complica¬ 
tions that had arisen in his Western interests. Cunning¬ 
ham, in spite of wealth or perhaps because of it, was not 
a waster. She listened eagerly to every word. 

“And, by-the-way,” he added, much as an afterthought; 
“I lunched with a former friend of yours, Lilia Grant. 
Met her as I was going into the Ritz. She was alone— 
so was I. So we joined forces.” 

She leaned back with a deep sigh. 

“I’m glad you told me that.” 

His reply held a note of surprise. 

“Why?” 

“Because Mary Bishop made it a point to inform me 
to-night that she’d seen you there. ‘Dicky still has a 
penchant for the theatrical profession,’ she said, ‘I saw 
him lunching to-day with a stage beauty.’ Of course, 
it amused me but I just had a feeling that I’d like to hear 
about it from you.” 

“It was of no importance. I might not have thought 
of mentioning it.” 

“No. Still—I suppose I’m silly and feminine—but 
if you hadn’t, I think it would have hurt.” 

“Do I demand to know every time Thorne comes out 
here?” 

“You don’t have to, Dick.” Her eyes were still intent 
on him. 

“I’ve lunched with Lilia Grant other days and haven’t 
thought of mentioning it.” 

“I know that, too.” 

His eyebrows shot up. “How?” 

“Other women.” 



CURTAIN! 


317 


He laughed. “How they do love each other!” 

She laughed with him. “It’s all right now. You’ve 
told me. I just didn’t want to think you’d deceive 
me.” 

“But, my dear girl, an omission like that is not de¬ 
liberate deceit.” 

“Omission,” came softly, “is often twin sister to 
commission.” 

His lips went tight. “Does that mean you’d ever 
let anything as cheap as suspicion of me enter your 
mind?” 

She got up, brushing her mouth across the hard line 
of his. “If I love you as much as I do, it’s reasonable 
to suppose other women might.” 

And that was when she gave him the story of Thorne’s 
play—more to change the subject than anything else— 
with eyes shining and slim jeweled hands sending sparks 
into the room’s golden shadows. He listened, watching 
her, the light on her face, the blaze of enthusiasm under 
the thick lashes. 

“It’s a splendid part for Lilia,” she ended. “She’ll be 
fascinating in it, don’t you think?” 

“Great!” And after a moment, “Nancy—does seeing 
so much of Thorne and old Jerry ever tempt you to go 
back on the stage?” 

She went close to him as if his bigness were a shelter. 

“It’s a temptation I’d never acknowledge, dear heart 
—not even to myself.” 

“But you haven’t answered me.” 

“I did that when I made my choice—when I married 
you. I couldn’t be disloyal to that. Besides”—and all 


318 


FOOTLIGHTS 


the woman of her went into the words—“you and the 
two little yous fill my life. I’ve no time for any other 
devotion.” 

He looked down at the head, reddened under the am¬ 
ber lights, at the graceful line of throat and shoulder, 
at the proud lips that were his. And his arms swept up 
and round her. 

Drama moves swiftly. No pause for explanation once 
the wheels are set going, no rambling into far corners for 
side lights as in the novel, but a tornado-like gathering 
of incident that hurls itself without notice into crashing 
storm. Life crowded into a few short hours, just as a 
few short hours so often crowd life into one crashing 
crisis. Without warning, or at least without warning 
heeded, one answers the doorbell or opens a telegram or 
takes up a telephone receiver. And behold, the face 
blanches, the heart stops beating, to beat again with ham¬ 
mer stroke too horrible to bear! 

It happened that Thorne’s roadster drew up under 
the porte-cochere one May day and, removing dusty gog¬ 
gles, he announced that he had come to talk about a scene 
that stumped him. 

“I’ve traveled to Mecca to consult the Oracle.” 

Nancy shook hands enthusiastically. Dick had been 
away for several days; her favorite mount, Lord Chester¬ 
field, had been taken to town by the head groom for 
treatment under a famous “vet”; and endless dinners 
had bored her to a state of loneliness known only to those 
whose lives have hummed with activity. Her husband 
would not be back until to-morrow and to put in a few 


CURTAIN! 


319 


hours with Ted in the atmosphere of the theater was a 
welcome diversion. 

i 

When they had discussed pros and cons and the kick 
in the big scene; when the playwright in hushed voice 
had told Dicky the usual pirate tale, and' the three had 
lunched together under the trees, Nancy jumped up. 

“Ted, will you run me into town this afternoon? I 
want to have a look at Lord Chesterfield. He went lame 
last week, you know.” 

Thorne beamed. 

“Bully! It’s a whale of a day. Why not stay in? 
We can dine and I’ll run you out early.” 

But she refused. The kiddies were put to bed at 
six-thirty and she wanted to be back before then. 

“I’ll take the train back. Don’t bother about that.” 

She came downstairs presently buttoned into a gray 
topcoat. From under a tight little turban the sunset hair 
waved, held by a gray veil. 

They tore out of the grounds, along roads of glass at a 
pace that left both breathless. Nancy felt the sluggish¬ 
ness of the past few days lashed out of her blood. It 
flew happily to her cheeks, tingled to her finger tips, sent 
the laughter into her lips as the man beside her gave the 
latest bits of Broadway gossip, the latest funny story 
from a region teeming with them. She stored them up 
for Dick, picturing his enjoyment when on his return next 
day she should give them with all her embellishment of 
mimicry. 

The first pungent scent of summer, clover and sweet 
grass and occasional great mounds of hay, rose from the 
meadows as they sped past. The vault above was in- 


320 


FOOTLIGHTS 


tensely turquoise and without a cloud. It would be a 
heavenly night with a young silver moon etched against 
the sky and all things filmed by its light. She wished 
Dick were going to be home. They could have taken a 
tearing ride like this with all the countryside to them¬ 
selves. 

The breezes became sultry. City smoke crept in. The 
car jerked over cobbles, dodging barelegged youngsters 
and wedging at last into the clatter of Queensboro Bridge. 
Nancy’s nose crinkled. She had come to hate the city 
with its odors and noises and strained faces and heavy 
air, all the elements which had passed unnoticed when 
she was part of it and a struggler. 

From the cluttered Eastside they went through the 
district whose boarded doors and windows like the blank 
eyes of the blind proclaimed it fashionable; then the 
dust-covered green of the Park and out at the street in 
the Sixties where down the block three windows blinked 
coquettishly. 

Nancy descended, held out a hand. “Good luck, Ted. 
And let’s hear it when you’ve got it ready.” 

His alert gaze was bright with satisfaction. “You’ve 
set me on the right track. You always do.” 

She waved as he drove off, then rang the bell beside 
the big door. It swung back slowly, heavily, and the 
head-groom stood in the opening. She caught the look 
of surprise that swept over his face, passing as quickly 
after the manner of well-trained servants who are sup¬ 
posed to have no emotions. 

“How is Lord Chesterfield?” she inquired, stepping 
out of the sunlight. 


CURTAIN! 


321 


“He’s not been so fine to-day, madam. I think there’s 
pain in the left forefoot.” 

“I want to have a look at him.” 

“Yes, madam.” 

He closed the door, led the way to the run. But Nancy 
started toward the stairs. 

He turned. “Is there anything I can do for you, 
madam?” 

“No, that’s all right, Jarvis. I’ll just leave my coat 
and come down.” 

“I can take it.” He stepped forward hastily, with 
rather a note of apology. “The painters are up there, 
madam. The rain of two days ago made a leak in the 
roof and I had to have them in. The place is in some¬ 
thing of a mess.” 

But Nancy was already halfway up the stairs. “It 
doesn’t matter.” 

She disappeared, dropped her coat on the divan in 
the gray room, and looked ceilingward. No sign of re¬ 
pairs there. Probably the leak was at the front of the 
house. 

Turning into the hall she noticed that Jarvis had fol¬ 
lowed her. 

“Pardon me, madam—will you be coming down to 
see Lord Chesterfield now?” 

“Just a minute.” 

She threw open the double oak doors at the end. And 
her breath stopped as she did on the threshold. 

A stream of sunshine flecked with motes came through 
the far window and centered on the couch. Lounging 
there in a position of uttermost comfort was Dick and 


322 


FOOTLIGHTS 


at his feet, hatless and cross-legged like some willing 
slave of the harem, Lilia Grant. A look of flame was 
in his non-committal eyes and in her heavy ones, languor. 
The ripe red lips were raised. From her fingers a cig¬ 
arette dangled as he leaned close and struck a match. 
All too evident, though, that it was not to light the cig¬ 
arette those lips were lifted. 

Nancy’s hand went to her throat. That was all. 
Went to her throat and clung there. 

The two started at the sound of another’s presence. 
The match halted. Cunningham looked up. He 
straightened, sat for an instant without moving, then 
got to his feet. 

The provocation faded from Lilia’s lips. A moment 
before she had had the unmistakable air of being 
perfectly at home. Now as she followed the man’s 
sharp glance she stiffened. Uneasily she too rose and, 
as neither of the others spoke, gave a nervous little 
laugh. 

“Why, Nancy, this is a coincidence! We’ve been ex¬ 
pecting Ted Thorne for tea and only half an hour ago 
tried you on the phone to get you, too.” 

Nancy made no attempt to refute the glib lie. She 
simply stood gazing at her husband as if her eyes were 
touching him. Then she turned away. 

“I think—I won’t wait,” she managed to say and 
went out, closing the door. 

At the other side she stopped, hands pressed tight 
to her lips, and waited for courage to go forward. 

Partway down the stairs she saw Jarvis looking up. 
Fright grayed his face. 


CURTAIN! 


323 


“I’ll see Lord Chesterfield now/’ she told him and 
followed to the run. 

With gaze straining through the train window an hour 
later at meadow and woodland she did not see, she was 
carried back to Restawhile, to the babies waiting for 

her. 

The moon rose, as she had pictured it, paling the 
trees outside her room and the lawn beneath. 

At last her door opened. Cunningham entered, clos¬ 
ing it softly, switched on the lights and saw her sitting 
hunched in a chair, with eyes bewildered as if they could 
not realize the thing they had revealed. He spoke her 
name—once, twice. She did not even glance at him. 

“Nancy, answer me!” 

She turned slowly. 

“I ask you not to jump at conclusions. Nancy—” 

“Yes!” 

“Why didn’t you wait?” 

Her gaze locked with his incredulously. “You think 
I could have waited?” 

“I understand,” he put in hastily. “That’s why I 
made no attempt to detain you. The situation was awk¬ 
ward.” 

She laughed. It might have been a cry from the soul. 

“Awkward, nothing more!” he hurried on. “I ad¬ 
mit, it looked damning. I, myself, would have judged 
as you did. But I give you my word—” 

She swept it aside. 

“Jarvis tried to keep me from going up. That alone 
proves—” 

“Jarvis is a servant, with the view point of his class. 


324 


FOOTLIGHTS 


She uttered the thought that had been spinning round 
in her brain. “He would scarcely have tried to pro¬ 
tect you if that had been her first visit.” 

“Why not? He concluded because a woman happened 
to be there with me—alone—Bah,” he broke off, “that 
end of it’s not worth considering! What you think is 
all that concerns me. And what you think is only too 
evident.” 

“What I think—what I think!” Her hands clasped 
and unclasped incessantly. Her voice came strangled. 

He had been pacing up and down. Now he pulled 
a chair close to hers. 

“But you’re wrong, dear. It’s circumstantial evidence 
and worth as much. I came back to-day unexpectedly, 
looked in at the uptown office before going home and 
found a message from Lilia, asking me to see her this 
afternoon without fail. I called her hotel and arranged 
to meet her at the stable. Jarvis had notified me that 
Lord Chesterfield was seedy and it occurred to me that 
by having her come there, I’d save time.” 

“You—” the words came haltingly as if difficult to 
speak—“you didn’t seem in haste when I saw you.” 

“Come now—be sporting, dear.” He tried to make 
a laugh cut the tension. “You know my interest in the 
theater.” 

“Yes—I know.” 

“Well, Lilia’s consulted me any number of times about 
one thing or another. And she has a Bohemian way of 
establishing palship that you don’t understand.” 

“Don’t I?” 

“No. I wouldn’t want you to. But the fact remains 


i 


CURTAIN! 


325 


that Lilia on the floor with a cigarette in her mouth 
means no more than another woman at the tea table.” 

She made no reply. 

“Of course she lied when she said we were expect¬ 
ing Thorne/’ he pursued. “You knew that, didn’t you?” 

“Yes. He was out here to-day and motored me in. 
But I’d have known anyway.” 

“Can’t understand why it’s so much easier for women 
to lie than tell the truth.” 

“Perhaps men teach them it’s easier.” 

There was a breath without words. 

“For instance/’ she went on monotonously and her eyes 
dropped to the hands clenched against her knees, “you’re 
going to tell me I’ve no right to misjudge either you 
or Lilia.” 

“Why, my dearest,” Cunningham lifted her lowered 
face, looked long into it. “There’s nothing mysterious 
in the whole affair. Kane offered to star her in a new 
production if she’d get him the backing and she 
wants me to put up the money. That’s the long 
and short of it. I had every intention of consulting 
you.” 

She drew away, looking at him straight and direct. 
Her lips opened but closed without speech. She had been 
on the point of asking how it happened that he had 
arrived in town a day ahead of time without letting her 
know, why he had failed to telephone. But she could 
not bring herself to question him. And he gave little 
time. 

Lifting both her hands he unlocked them, drew them 
to his breast and met her eyes unwavering. 


326 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“Lilia and I are nothing more than good pals, like— 
like you and Thorne. I want you to believe that.” 

“It’s impossible, Dick—after what I saw to-day.” 

“Why? Have you ever before had cause to doubt 
me?” 

“No.” She hesitated a bit before admitting it. 

“Then why seize on the first occasion?” 

“Seize on it? Seize on it?” She gave another low 
breathless laugh. “That—that’s funny! Seize on my 
own misery—seize on the shattering of all I hold dear!” 

“You’re nervous and hysterical now and things look 
monstrous. But I know you too well to think this 
mood can last.” His hands crept toward her shoulders. 
All through the interview there had been no conflict 
on his part, no man-woman antagonism, just an assump¬ 
tion of honest effort to convince her. And now he 
adroitly resorted to the means by which he had won 
her, a man’s most convincing way of setting himself right, 
the lover’s. He drew her, resisting, out of the chair— 
enfolded her in his arms—bent his lips, whispered: 
“No other woman could mean anything while I have 
you. Don’t you know that?” 

A moment passed, longer than any she had ever lived 
through. Then, so low that he could scarcely hear: 
“I’m going to believe you, Dick—because I want to be¬ 
lieve you,” she said. 

Neither of them referred to it again. As if by mutual 
agreement the matter was sealed. Whatever scar the 
experience had left so far as Nancy was concerned, her 
lips were closed as the lips of the dead. 

When eventually she heard through Thorne that along 


t 


CURTAIN! 


327 


the Rialto it was whispered Lilia actually was consider¬ 
ing an offer from Kane, she felt immensely relieved. 
Dick had told her the truth then about that end of it. 
Why was the rest not true as well? 

And as if to assure her, his devotion duplicated that 
of their honeymoon. Her happiness seemed the thought 
paramount, her peace of mind his topmost concern. It 
continued so until business called him West, the tangle 
that for some time had been knotting his California 
interests. The letters he sent, when they were not of 
her and the children, spoke of his boredom after affairs 
of the day were done with, of the humidity and discomfort 
of the rainy season and emphasized his eagerness to re¬ 
turn. They came from various coast cities—San Fran¬ 
cisco, Sacramento, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles. 

“It’s possible you may not hear from me the next 
few weeks,” a final communication told her. “I find it 
necessary to go to New Mexico to look into a railroad 
proposition. For a time I may be located miles from 
any post office. But know that I’m safe and thinking 
of you, my dearest, and expect me back sometime in 
September.” 

Nancy packed when it arrived and left to visit the 
Bishops at Newport. Stopping overnight in town, she 
ran into Coghlan on his way to the Knickerbocker Grill, 

daily trysting place of managers. 

“Say, what d’you think of Lilia?” He chortled in 
the midst of pouring out plans for the coming season. 
“Gone to Hawaii to get atmosphere before she signs up 
for that lead. Atmosphere! Can you beat it? Paying 
her own expenses, too. Told her she was crazy, but 


328 


FOOTLIGHTS 


nothing to it—had to go. Developing too much tem¬ 
perament for her own good, that kid!” 

Nancy had not yet brought herself to the point of 
hearing Lilia’s name without wincing. But she managed 
a smile and asked: “When does she return?” 

“Next month sometime. Told her rehearsals begin 
the fifteenth whether she’s on the job or not. So you 
can bank on it, she’ll be here.” His appraising yet im¬ 
personal glance ran the length of Nancy’s graceful figure, 
from the wide hat shading her eyes to the narrow brown 
pumps and slim ankles. “All to the good, Nancy,” he 
sighed regretfully, “all to the good! Just home and 
mother stuff too! And, by golly, five years ago I guyed 
myself into thinking I’d turn you out the greatest actress 
in America!” 

She wondered vaguely as she sped toward the worldly 
paradise whose gates had swung wide to her whether 
old Jerry was right. Would she have become a great 
actress or just the darling of a few fickle years? That 
girl with her wild dark eyes and swirl of golden hair, 
would the public she had loved have wept and laughed 
with her to-day? She wondered and smiled reminis¬ 
cently, a smile with a tear, like some bittersweet memory 
of the dead. 

At the station she was met by her host, otherwise 
known as Mary Bishop’s husband, and in a supremely 
groomed car was driven through supremely groomed 
streets, ultra as the leaders who dwelt there. Courty 
Bishop sat back beside her, caressed his waxed mus¬ 
tache and regaled her with choice bits of news, just as 
Coghlan had regaled her the day before. After all, she 


CURTAIN! 


329 


told herself, there wasn’t much difference in the two 
worlds. Appraisingly, but with a look not quite so im¬ 
personal as that of her former manager, the sophisti¬ 
cated eyes turned to scan her beauty while his facile 
tongue rambled on. 

“I say—you top ’em all, Nancy! What a risk that 
boy, Dick, takes—leaving you alone so long!” 

“Not so much of a risk,” she laughed, mentally plac¬ 
ing her husband next to the little man. 

“But what the deuce takes him such a distance this 
time of year?” 

“Oh, railroad stuff.” 

“Bore—the tropics in midsummer!” 

“Tropics?” 

“Well,—that’s what I’d call the Hawaiian Islands. 
One of my men, McIntyre, met him on the way out. 
Wrote that if Cunningham didn’t kick at going, guessed 
he couldn’t. But why in hades—” 

The woman beside him heard no more. Hawaii!! 
Like some giant machinery against her ears, his words 
became a whirr. She smiled mechanically, as so many 
women have done, while the world stood still. 

Fate had lifted the prompter’s hand and slowly the 
curtain descended on Act II of Nancy Bradshaw’s life 
drama. 


CHAPTER III—ACT III 


T HE hum of arrival in that great hive, the Grand 
Central, kept up an incessant drone. Scurrying 
figures swarmed like bees from the gates to disappear 
into the night. Red caps raced back and forth, elbow¬ 
ing one another in the rush for spoils. City hus¬ 
bands reached out eagerly from roped-off lines to coun¬ 
try wives and sunburned youngsters. Embraces and 
laughter and inarticulate efforts to tell everything in 
one moment kept the air abuzz. Life, centralized in 
one small area of space, was at its busiest. 

Into this hubbub from the Lake Shore Limited swung 
a man in tweed suit, the porter at his side laden with 
the trappings of a long trip. His big shoulders pushed 
through the throng into the lighted terminal and he looked 
around. Rapidly his glance traveled from face to face, 
then back along the congested line and once again its 
length. A look of annoyance that brought brows to¬ 
gether followed the swift scrutiny and he made for the 
telephone booths. Impatiently he gave the operator a 
number, concentrating his gaze on her while she made 
the Long Island connection. When some three minutes 
later he emerged from the booth, the look of annoyance 
had changed to anger. 

With characteristic stride of authority he moved across 
the crowded stone floor, bounded up the steps and waited, 
peering at his watch in the outer gloom as taxis unloaded 

their burdens and took on others. When his turn came 

330 


CURTAIN! 


331 


he sprang in, gave the address of a small select hotel 
off Fifth Avenue and all the way there sat staring fixedly 
out at the lighted shops, his lips a thin, angry line. 

The line had not disappeared as he stepped from the 
elevator to the door of a suite and imperatively rang 
the bell. It was opened by a girl in nursemaid’s cap 
who gave a start when she saw who it was. He pushed 
past with the same look he had cast about the station. 
Then he turned abruptly, sending at her a volley of 
rapid-fire questions. 

Madam was not there, she answered. Yes, the chil¬ 
dren were, but Mrs. Cunningham had gone to dinner and 
the theater. No, she did not believe any telegram had 
been received from him. Madam, she was sure, had 
not expected him to-night. They had been in town since 
the beginning of the week. No, Mrs. Cunningham had 
not gone out with any one. To The Coghlan Theatre, 
she believed. 

Her curious gaze followed him as he went down the 
hall to the elevator. Then softly she shut the door. 

At ten minutes to nine he strolled into The Coghlan 
Theater, the last of a fashionably late audience. 

The place was packed and he leaned leisurely against 
the rear balustrade to wait for the curtain before try¬ 
ing to locate his wife. 

Across the footlights palm trees swayed, recalling the 
land of secrets he had left behind. Something about 
the sensuous atmosphere so realistically reproduced 
made him turn away. Then his eyes took in the woman 
who held the center of the stage. Her voice—low, 
beautifully modulated—rolled toward him. Her eyes, 


332 FOOTLIGHTS 

burning black, turned in his direction. He gripped the 
rail, bent over it. 

Nancy!! In spite of the dark wig and olive tinted 
skin, there was no mistake! Nancy—on the stage of 
The Coghlan! The sudden sharp crackle of a program 
broke the stillness. 

NANCY BRADSHAW 
in 

“Broken Wings” 

There it was—Nancy Bradshaw—staring at him from the 
sheet he had not troubled to read. 

Nancy! Mrs. Richard Cunningham! 

He made the lobby like a bull gone mad. Generations 
of training, years of the will to control, were as if they 
had never been. He was the outraged male, bent on 
destroying the thing which had defied him. 

Outside he found Coghlan who, from the box-office, 
had glimpsed him sauntering in and evidently antici¬ 
pated precisely what had happened. 

Jerry’s good-natured face with its row of chins was 
hard as an iron mask as he blocked Cunningham’s on¬ 
rush. 

“Hello, there,” he said genially, reaching out a hand. 

Cunningham’s fists clenched white. 

“I’ve got to see my wife.” 

“Well, can’t see her from anywhere but in there until 
after the performance. Nobody goes backstage—strict 
orders.” Then smiling broadly, “Made a hell of a hit! 
You ought to be damn proud of her.” 

“I’m going to see her now!” 


CURTAIN! 


333 


Jerry grinned serenely. “Don’t blame you. Should 
have been here Monday for the opening—sensation, old 
man! Always said that in five years she’d be the great¬ 
est actress in the country. And take it from me—” 

From within, a swelling volume of applause told the 
fall of the curtain. 

Cunningham made a lunge to pass the figure that 
blocked him. 

“Careful, careful, old boy!” came firmly from the man¬ 
ager. “Hold tight there! They’ll be coming out— 
take it easy.” 

The other man’s face was set. 

“I’ve told you—” 

“And I tell you! This is my theater! Anybody who 
causes any disturbance gets out!” 

A prominent clubman sighted Cunningham at this 
juncture and hurried across the lobby. From that mo¬ 
ment Nancy’s husband was forced to assume an easy pride 
calculated to disarm gossip, forced to become the center 
of a throng bent upon congratulating him on his wife’s 
success. 

During the ten minutes of intermission he bore it with 
a smile chiseled on his handsome face, then left the 
theater as the lights went low. Back to the hotel he 
tramped, turned and retraced his steps like some mad¬ 
man muttering to himself. Then up and down the dark 
alley of the stage entrance, watching for signs that the 
final curtain had fallen, unable to consider the sane and 
sensible alternative of waiting for his wife in the pri¬ 
vacy of her own rooms. 

When at last they stood face to face under the bril- 



334 FOOTLIGHTS 

liant lights of her dressing-room it was evident Coghlan 
had warned her. 

She was alone. In the little room where they had met 
five years ago they met once more. And to-night as that 
night a flame like a living thing darted between them. 
Then it had been white and warming. Now it filled 
the place, a devastating fury. But in the face of it she 
stood calm. 

It would have taken an observer less self-absorbed 
to note that her hand trembled as it grasped a chair- 
back, that her breath came quickly. In silence they 
measured each other. In silence she waited, her eves 
never leaving him. 

At last he spoke and his voice was as hard as that 
of a judge pronouncing extreme penalty. 

“Well—have you anything to say for yourself?” 

She shook her head and not defiance but sadness 
was in the look she sent him. “Nothing I want to 
say.” 

“You realize, of course, that I’m going to put a stop 
to this business here and now.” 

Again that look—half regret, half sorrow. 

“You can no longer put a stop to anything I do.” 

In his unreasoning wrath the actual import of her 
words missed him. 

“I don’t care what contracts you’ve made—to-night 
finishes them.” 

“Suppose we try to talk this over quietly”—she gave 
a slight gesture of weariness as she sat down before her 
dressing-table—“if it must be discussed.” 

“Must be discussed? Good God! I come back after 


CURTAIN! 335 

three months, ring my home, find that my wife has moved 
into town without a word to me—” 

“You forget—you had overlooked giving me your ad¬ 
dress.” 

“And come up against the fact,” he rushed on, “that 
she’s taken advantage of my absence to put over— 
What’s your explanation of this damned outrage?” he 
broke off hotly. 

Her eyes, tense and brilliant, held his. He gave a 
short laugh. 

“I assume you and Coghlan have concocted one.” 

“Coghlan has no idea of my reason for doing it. He 
merely knows that in July I sent word to him that I 
would take this part if Lilia Grant refused it. He didn’t 
wait to find out, though she cabled him a week later 
saying Kane was going to star her.” 

“And you thought I’d let you get away with it! After 
five years of living with me you thought I’d stand for 
anything like this!” 

“It doesn’t matter whether you stand for it or not.” 

He had been pacing up and down, hands thrust into 
his pockets, ready to plunge through the walls. Now 
suddenly he veered about, stood rooted. 

“I mean it.” Softly she answered his amazement. 
“I’m back on the stage because I realize how little my 
leaving it meant to you.” 

He went close to her then, threat in every line of 
his big frame. 

“You’re my wife—the mother of my children.” 

“Yes—that’s all.” 

“All?” 



336 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“I bore your name, I bore your children. I gave up 
the stage to do both. And in giving it up, I sacrificed 
your love.” 

Her back was turned but out of the shadows of her 
triple mirror gazed a face white with pity of him, with 
suffering for the thing which, through him, both had lost. 

“Sacrificed my love?” he began as a man feels his 
way along paths he is not sure of. “What in heaven’s 
name gave you that idea?” 

“Please,” she stopped him with a swift gesture, 
“please—don’t speak of it! I can’t bear it!” 

“Look here, Nancy,” came somewhat more calmly, 
“this is nonsense—silly woman stuff. I’m not saying you 
didn’t think you had some rational excuse for doing this 
thing. But it’s out of the question. It simply can’t 
continue. I made that clear when I married you. Bore¬ 
dom or restlessness or the sort of unreasoning mood 
that gets hold of women probably drove you to it.” 

“You drove me to it,” she answered quietly. 

“What’s got over you?” he came back sharply. “You 
talk like a mad woman.” 

“No—I’m quite sane. I see quite clearly—too clearly. 
I’ve had plenty of time to go over it—to face the truth. 
I thought when I married you that you loved the woman 
in me. Now I know it was the actress. You loved me 
for the thing I gave up because I loved you—the glam¬ 
our of the stage. Popularity—the fact that I was con¬ 
spicuous made me desirable. You demanded that I 
sacrifice all that. And when I did, I became the same 
to you as hundreds of women you’d known, women you 
were tired of. You cut me off completely from my old 


CURTAIN! 337 

life, except as a spectator—then sought in that old life 
the thrill and interest I could no longer give you.” 

She paused. Her hand went to her throat as it had 
that day in the house of the fir trees. 

“All these five years when I’ve longed for a glimpse 
of it—just a glimpse—to become part of it again if only 
for a little while, I’ve felt guilty, almost as if I’d been 
untrue to you. I’ve thrust the thought aside as some¬ 
thing unworthy. I’ve let you fill my life. Well,” she 
paused, “now I’ve gone back to it. I’ve gone back to 
the thing that made you love me. And I’ve gone—to 
stay.” 

Defiance at last leaped at him. It tore from her, as 
they stood measuring each other, like a panther from 
some rustling jungle. It gripped his throat. 

“Woman excuses!” he brought out at last. “With¬ 
out rhyme or reason to back them! Well, they won’t 
answer. I’m still waiting for a straight, rational ex¬ 
planation. Suppose you let me have it—now.” 

“All right, I will. I didn’t want to, but since you 
demand it you shall have it. I’ve given you my reason, 
my motive. I’ve told you what sent me back to the stage. 
But the thing that brought me to my senses, that made 
me realize the truth, can be summed up in just three 
word: Hawaii—Lilia Grant.” 

She spoke as if merely voicing them were tearing open 
a wound unhealed, spoke them so low that they came 
like a breath. 

And hearing, he straightened, stood silent, too stunned 
to think of an answer. 

The noise of slamming doors and scurrying feet beat 




338 


FOOTLIGHTS 


instead against the stillness, all the echoing movements 
that strike bare walls when the play is done. 

“It was rather funny—wasn’t it?—that I should have 
believed you that first time,” she went on. “But I 
told myself what I had seen was impossible; that if I 
had given up the thing that was life to me, surely you 
wouldn’t go back to it for the fascination of grease-paint 
and footlights. Surely you couldn’t seek in another 
woman the thing you had denied me! That’s why I ac¬ 
cepted your half truths—eagerly. Because I wanted to 
—and one does so many foolish things when one wants 
to. That’s why it was so much harder when I did find 
out.” 

“Nancy—” he began. 

“Please don’t try to explain this away!” came breath¬ 
lessly. “It can’t be set right. It’s done! And I’d 
like to go on being friends, because, you see, I did love 
you.” 

“Then—” he seized on the note in her voice. 

“No! Never!” 

They were just two words, low as a conscience whisper. 
But they closed the gates of what had been with the 
grim certainty of fate. His steel-colored eyes—habitually 
so sure of themselves—wavered. His fists gripped against 
an enemy unknown. And only the woman whose gaze 
locked with his knew that the enemy was himself. 

He looked down at the blonde head round which the 
lights of the theater glimmered once more; those lights 
he had torn away to make her entirely his. 

“You mean that?” he brought out at last. 

“Yes.” 


i 



CURTAIN! 


339 


“Finally?” 

“It can’t be otherwise—now.” 

He turned swiftly on his heel and went the length of 
the room, then back to where she stood. He pulled up 
sharp and his lips snapped together. 

“All right. But you leave one item out of the reckon¬ 
ing. As long as you bear my name, you respect it! 

If you persist in this—I’ll divorce you.” 

“The name is yours. I am Nancy Bradshaw again.” 

“What do you mean by that?” 

“Only what I said. You can have it back any time 
you want. I won’t make a move to stop you. You 
can have everything you’ve ever given me—everything. 
The one thing I had a right to keep—you’ve taken away. 
So what else matters?” 

She walked slowly over to where her clothes hung be¬ 
hind a cretonne curtain, took down a black hat and pulled 
it over her shining hair. She stood there, shoulders 
drooping, head bent. 

Outside the soft shuffle of the old watchman’s feet 
told he was going the rounds. Good-nights had been 
tossed from one to another of the departing company. 
That heavy quiet of night in a darkened theater rolled 
backstage. The world of make-believe had vanished. 
Only the shell remained. 

Cunningham leaned a bit heavily against the door. For 
the first time life had thwarted, left him impotent, and 
a new sensation, when unpleasant, is difficult to handle. 

The woman he had loved and desired, the woman 
who had stirred him, who had been his, came toward 
him as to a stranger. 




340 


FOOTLIGHTS 


“I’m afraid I must go/’ she said. 

He roused himself to a final stand. 

“You realize/’ came hoarsely, “that I’ll fight this— 
fight it to a finish? You realize as well that the chil¬ 
dren will come to me?” 

Pain for what had been and what might have been; 
memories, all that had made these moments a requiem, 
vanished from her voice. She went close to him. Like 
his own her body went taut, her hands tense, her head 
high. Primitive even as himself, she met him, ready 
for combat. 

Suddenly something in her answering gaze, in the 
black of her eyes that could flame up like two live 
things, made clear the writing on the wall. 

“I don’t think you’ll try to do that. I shan’t attempt 
to keep them from you, of course. But they’re mine, 
you know,—and 1 haven’t forfeited the right to 
them.” 

Without another word, she stood waiting for him to 
step aside. He hesitated, made as if to speak, then 
turned abruptly and the slam of a door resounded like 
thunder. 

One by one she turned off the lights. Out across 
the familiar boards she went to the center of the stage, 
set for to-morrow. Face lifted to the darkness, she stood 
where had come to her the struggle eternal—success, 
conflict, love, renunciation. And to her lips came the 
question woman will always ask, the question always un¬ 
answered: “Why?” 

And so the curtain descended on Act III of Nancy 
Bradshaw’s life drama. 


i 


CURTAIN! 


341 


THE CURTAIN FALLS 

The lights of the auditorium flame high. The audience 
rises. It has stepped down from the footlights. It 
moves in undulating tide toward the wide-flung doors. 

Beyond those doors is night, the world of care. The 
brief hours of living in a house of dreams is over. For¬ 
getfulness gives place to memory. The spirit of the 
theater lifts its magic touch from tired eyes. 

Backstage all is dark and wondering. Have we played 
our parts as an audience and sensed its heartbeats? Have 
we smiled its smiles? Teased its vanity? Gained its 
approval? We of this little play—have we succeeded in 
our striving to make a critical throng throb to it? Back 
of the swaying curtain, before which one of asbestos has 
dropped heavily, all is wild hope, eager prayer, despairing 
question. 

The house of dreams is empty, the soft-armed chairs 
shrouded as if each held a pale ghost. Is it to be alight 
or dark? Do we live or die? 

To-morrow holds the answer. 





wise 




i a w • 0 « > 




: 


V 

\ /\ * 

^ ♦TJ^T* A -o # * * 4 Cr ^b, *« 

*% °t, 4 **\c^L% ^ c°* j-» 

'*b# tMffitiZ' -%># *bv “* 

.$ " 

• ^ °o. 0> “V‘. 


Kfr „*° ^ *f^ 0 n 4>^ 'f&jBs 

* .♦ /xO e£» ^vKy^V* aP O a't^v**** O “V 

1 4 *«»« ^ *f|l* Ap 

c,^ * f^OoMjh • v *a, av ♦/CCwy/h. 0 x^_ A * 4rQOOTk • 

•4*. •WWraT,* -‘%^B!^I?» aVA. «Sl^iiRx§'» 


\ *Jff|* ; / \ \f|pt ; /% *J 

*. V # ’‘V 0 «--» V-V 

fe* C •j55$TW‘ O A*& X- «£ 


% 


v 

’. ^ o 

* « _ # 


o 9 A> v 'O * 

<y m »# <? 

aV 4V;'. v A? » 

rV + J8UZ&//A o „ 


V^ **••* **C\ 



vf> 


V \&PS /% */\ \lliP: 

%. '**•* \^ <;.'••*• A 0 ^ ^rrf* A 

o_ ,-$r 4 •V* • ♦ -0^ 0 • * * ♦ 4 V 

W *W«^ ^ C °o 41 

V* A « ft*; 4 • ^ 





^ C U °o Ar t • V J/* <** . 

p» * %*> <v * ^sxvtr 1 ^* aM ♦ jroZ^lT- y» . ^ 

sf: t 0< j™* 'Wm^' 

^ i° v t t »5°* 

^ f <% i’ . T^//)yP ^ 4 &% ^ K r 

Q rt, V v O tr^ *'0^ ^ ^ .. '^xST- 5 * * -<L» y C 

# » I 1 * A V >, %,0 9 / 

. v »:*> c\ aO »»v% *> *»•«- 

■*■ ^ 488 ^ %/ .-®& 

5k. '-ISSr. 0 a^ v ^ l !mm: ^ v : .^m^ 


;V ~ T >SP^* ^ 

\ ^Z' A <, '«•** > V'*’ 


^. • • 


.« o r * 

L* x0 1 


^6* 
.4 o. 


^ 4*i 

X5 V 

.O 







^ ® « 0 v 


♦ > V v ^cv 

^ av ♦rAW/h 0 v>, 

* yv :$MMyii Vv 

** - ° aV«^ o 

■* -"A* <£» ^ ^ ° 

k ^ * • 

W • 



a O o % *>^.‘ A 

^ ... <£». • *° 




cSv/v ; * 

* <? * i 

4 cT \ *< 
& 


v F <* *••’»* AW 

4 T> 1 / 4 ' <p> aV O * Q ^ 

.<* .*W®£\ % . C° °C 

> * v* <y 



o o 

„ ^ * * 1 A u 

■ ^ c? *4 

? . X V *4> k °M 

* 0y <£* _ ° 

,— . . * 


* C? ™’r\ -» 

♦ Ay '^a .» 

0^ -* , ~"-* ** j-4^ ^ 


i- 0-7 * 


<^5 ^ 


... \/^' <** °°*‘^*V 

.4, ^ <A A * > 


© • A 


- v> A'V - 
* <c>y ^Ca. * 

4 % ' 



C *Xs <A 

o \P 




U 

& *<nr»*’ a <* **?.?** .o* *■* 

r ^ .^4 tv*' ? ^b j-4. 4 y^^y. *%. n * ' l °“ 

^■o* ^o k' .jure^- '^o 1 


‘®* *<■-’•’ *° .. V'^* A °*. * 

t 1 • o # *r\ A % * f * * O^ £> 




«5 ^ . 

^ c^wf.yo 


°: \/ .’il: ;^8^: ^ H 

o * V-^V. ' 9 W®m. c^'S'n •* O a.V'^a 

* Av VV o vM\F * <7 ^ • 't&Wtt * A v 0 S 

<». s* A <. *o• fc* .Cr ^ ♦Ttv r* A <> 

A> »•■ 1 * ♦ Or & 0 “ * ♦ ^ O ,A • *• ; ^ 

^ *V C» •jtsSS^* ° * 4 —^ 


"o V 


- 

) v x*. <* 




V'O 

» °<o 

« ,a_r o <■ 


^ o « O 


A> v °4. A y .. ^ 

/ , < • O. CV ,0 ,>v >, *> 


?R ! L'» 


W®: 




e o 

* <y* O 


WERT 

BOOKBINDING 
Crantville. Pa 

Sept.-Oci. 1988 

W* >« Quaint Hvumi 


<± *° * * * 


V''^’ A <V 

a* :}d^* ^o* 


^ aV 

; v^ „ ^ 

ip. ^ ^ 
♦ A^> • \ 

J? V < 

/y 0 M • ’b 

C \J 0 (V ~ + W, 

© i 


4 o 










